Breakable
by MissDavis
Summary: After John is seriously injured, Sherlock struggles to figure out how to help him, keep himself sane, and maybe, just maybe, get their life back to the way it's supposed to be. Johnlock: Established Sherlock/John relationship.
1. Chapter 1

"How bad is it?"

Sherlock startled awake at the sound of John's voice, although there was no way he could've fallen asleep, even for a moment. No way. _John. John's awake. __John's alive. __Of course he's alive. __John's all right. __No. __No. __John's speaking. __He can speak. _Of course _he can speak. Don't be an idiot. __He's fine. __No. __But he's awake. __John's awake. __John._

He pushed down the useless thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him and focused on the man in the hospital bed in front of him. John was awake. He had been sedated for almost a full day after the surgery but now he was awake. Sherlock reached through the rails on the bed and carefully squeezed John's left hand; John's fingers twitched weakly in response. He could move. His fingers, at least. On one hand. _Relief. Love. __Fear._ The emotions surged before Sherlock could stop them.

"How bad?" John repeated. His voice was a dry croak that threatened Sherlock's self-control again.

Sherlock let his gaze travel the length of the bed, checking for any voluntary movement other than the twitch of John's fingers in his. Nothing. He was half-certain he would vomit if he had to repeat everything the doctors had told him, so all he said was, "T-9."

"Okay," John said. Sherlock could feel his own heart beating very fast; John's stayed steady, its rhythm broadcast by the monitor next to the bed.

"The surgery went well. They've been waiting for you to wake up to do more tests."

John nodded and closed his eyes. "Not yet." He squeezed Sherlock's hand, harder this time. Sherlock squeezed back, and bent awkwardly over the railing to brush his lips against John's knuckles. He felt John's other hand tangle briefly in his hair and had to bite back a whimper of relief. O_f course he can move his arms. Both arms. __Don't overreact. _The injury was mid-spine: T-9, the ninth thoracic vertebra; John would still have movement in most of his upper body. But hearing the doctor read it off a chart and having the proof of John's hand carding gently through his curls were two completely different experiences.

A minute later and John was asleep again. Sherlock wanted to wake him up and grab him by the shoulders and shake him and demand that he try to wiggle his toes, kick his legs, stand up and walk. He wanted to weave his hands into John's hair and kiss him until they both couldn't breathe. He wanted to crawl into bed next to him and cry himself to sleep. Instead he just settled back into the moulded plastic chair, leaving his fingers wrapped in John's, waiting, waiting.

He knew John could likely remember what happened; he hadn't hit his head or lost consciousness at all. Sherlock himself would never forget a moment of it. Some memories he could delete or over-write with ease. Others he would try to dismiss but they would slip into the hidden rooms of his mind palace, occasionally surprising him when he least expected it. And then there were memories like this, events that replayed every time he closed his eyes, intensifying and magnifying each time he relived them.

It wasn't even a suspect they were chasing, just a witness. A possible witness. A kid who'd probably been too high to even notice the man being murdered in the flat across the hall, but Sherlock wanted to talk to him, so while Lestrade and Donovan stayed downstairs interviewing the landlord, Sherlock had grabbed John by the arm and they'd gone after him. The kid had taken one look at them and fled, out of his flat, down the stairs, and doubtless out the front door. There were police all over the street out front, though, so the kid would head down the alley, hoping to slip off undetected into the night. Predictable and slow. Sherlock would be there first.

He opened the flat's only window and climbed out onto the fire escape, a cold draught of wind catching and lifting the tails of his coat. John was right behind him, of course, not hesitating to follow as Sherlock bounded out and down the stairs, and then he wasn't behind him anymore. The soft groan of the old metal creaking beneath Sherlock's feet became an ungodly screech as the rusted stairs gave way, pulling away from the building's wall as John clamoured down them.

Sherlock was already on the lower landing. He turned back and lunged toward the railing but not in time; John was on the ground in the alley below, his body twisted beneath a section of the broken stairs. It took Sherlock every long-neglected bit of self-preservation he possessed not to leap over the railing after him. Instead, he flew to the other side of the fire escape and yanked at the ladder it held, feeling pieces of the metal flake off beneath his gloved hands.

"I'm coming, John! Don't move! I'll be right there!" He wasn't sure if he shouted it out loud or just in his head, but he was on and down the ladder before it even finished descending, his feet barely touching the rungs, more of a slide than a climb, and it still wasn't fast enough.

He had his phone out before his feet hit the ground, for the first time appreciating the "Emergency Call" button he'd always seen as a rather vulgar intrusion on the lock screen. "Ambulance!" he shouted, as soon as the call was picked up, trying to pull the chunk of stairway off John without dropping the phone. "Don't move! Don't," he said to John, and crouched down next to his head while he gave the dispatcher the address and told her what had happened.

Sherlock settled his hand on John's shoulder as he answered the dispatcher's increasingly inane questions. John reached up and grabbed his hand, his grip tight and desperate. "Stop moving," Sherlock commanded again, then screamed into the phone, "He's 44 years old, how can that possibly matter? You have the address-get an ambulance here now!" He wanted to pitch the phone away into the darkness so he could focus on John, but he needed to make sure the dispatcher understood that there could not possibly be anything more important happening in the city than John Watson lying injured in this alleyway. He shoved the phone up between his ear and shoulder so he could have both hands free for John, and then someone was pulling the phone away from him and Sherlock had never been happier to see Sally Donovan than he was at that moment. She squatted next to them and calmly answered all of the operator's idiotic questions and after a moment Sherlock was able to tune her out and concentrate on John.

"It hurts." John had not lost his gift for stating the obvious. Sherlock pulled off his gloves and wrapped both hands around John's, some vague instinct telling him the skin-to-skin contact would be comforting.

Comforting. That's what he was supposed to be now. "Don't move," he repeated, and then had to stop himself from saying every other thought that passed through his mind. _You may have a spinal cord injury. Your right leg is bent at an awkward angle beneath your left, but you don't appear to have noticed. __I don't see any blood, which is good, but I'm afraid you may have lost control of your bladder. __Now your leg is twitching-you can't feel that, can you? __Can you? __Oh, John. __Help. _He forced himself to exhale and speak again. "The ambulance will be here soon."

"Cold," John said.

"You're going into shock." _Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit. _

"I know," John said. "Still feel cold, though."

He had to let go of John's hand and stand up to take his coat off. It _was_ cold, the air tonight, and Sherlock felt himself naked and exposed as he draped his heavy wool coat carefully over John. He could hear sirens now, though. Donovan had stepped away to the end of the alley to direct the paramedics, and there was no sign of the boy they'd been chasing. He'd probably heard the crash of breaking metal and run the other way, never even came near this godforsaken alleyway. Sherlock had led John out onto the traitorous fire escape for nothing. _Stupid_. He turned and kicked at the broken metal with the side of his foot. A small piece shot off to bounce against the wall; the rest of it just sat there, taunting and still.

"Sherlock." John's broken voice caught at him and a hand wrapped around his ankle.

"Stop fucking moving," Sherlock said, crouching down again, anger bubbling up, not at John but directed at him anyway.

"Don't leave me alone."

"I'm not. Of course I'm not. Don't be ridiculous." He softened his voice, though he knew he would find no happy medium between anger and tears.

Donovan skidded down the alley toward them, leading two uniformed men with a stretcher. Sherlock let her tug him out of the way. That was surprising; he would've expected himself to recoil at her touch, say something cutting. Instead he slid back on his rear until his back hit the wall of the building behind him. He drew his knees up to his chest and stayed there, shivering, watching as the paramedics hunched over John. They were moving too slowly, he thought; John should be in the ambulance by now, but they didn't even have him on the backboard yet. The reason why appeared a few moments later, in the form of two more first responders who raced down the alley to join them. The four of them spread out around John and proceeded to lift him onto the backboard. Sherlock thought they would've rolled him onto it; there must be a reason for the different technique. This was the kind of thing he would usually find interesting, except-.

He rocked up onto his knees and vomited what little food he had in his stomach. He was still dry-heaving when Donovan grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. "Come on." The paramedics were loading John into the ambulance. Donovan picked Sherlock's coat up off the ground and shoved it at him. "And here's your phone back. Come on, now, I don't want to have to drive you to the hospital."

He let her keep her hand on his arm and told himself it wasn't because he was too unsteady to walk to the end of the alley on his own. John was already in the ambulance when they got there; Sherlock couldn't see his face from where he stood outside, just his body, strapped to the board, and the edge of the rigid plastic collar that ringed his neck. One paramedic was inside with him; another stood outside, in Sherlock's way. He tried to push past him to climb in beside John.

The man put his hand on Sherlock's chest to stop him. He had two inches and three or four stone on Sherlock, but Sherlock was quite certain he could knock all the other man's teeth out and leave him bleeding on the ground if he needed to.

"Let him ride. It's his husband." Donovan punctuated the lie with a hand against Sherlock's back, urging him forward. He glanced back at her; he was going to have to be nice to her for a long time in exchange for all the small favours she was doing tonight.

"I don't care who he is. If he's going to be sick again he has to ride up front. I won't have him upsetting the patient."

As if a little vomiting would upset John. Sherlock scrubbed his hand over his mouth. "I won't be sick again." He pulled himself up to his full height and tried to look composed and sure of himself. If he'd been wearing his coat instead of clutching it against his chest and shivering that might have been more effective.

The paramedic glared at him and Donovan shifted forward as if preparing to fight and then from inside the ambulance John spoke. "Let him in." He didn't sound hurt-his voice was pure Dr Watson with just an edge of Captain Watson, commanding and steady, and the paramedic grimaced and turned sideways to look at his patient and Sherlock scrambled up into the back of the ambulance before anyone could say anything more.

The paramedic frowned and then shrugged and climbed into the ambulance, pulling the doors shut behind them. He pointed to a small chair that folded out from the wall and said, "Sit there. No distractions." Sherlock sat, hunched into the chair but with his feet stretched out, trying to be simultaneously as close to John and as unobtrusive as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

_Anyone with any actual medical knowledge, please feel free to point out spots where my medical fakery doesn't work._

* * *

><p>When John woke up again he seemed much less groggy, although saying he was more like himself might've been stretching it a bit. He did sit up enough to drink some water through a straw.<p>

Sherlock held the plastic cup for him and watched him raise himself, weight on his elbows, enough to take a sip. Good, that was good, wasn't it? Except he also thought John wasn't supposed to be moving at all, though if they really wanted him immobilized they wouldn't have stopped the sedative he'd been getting through the IV. Right? He could ask John's opinion: _From a medical point of view, is it wise for you to be lifting your shoulders from the bed? Will that aggravate the swelling in your spine? __Shouldn't you just stay flat on your back? _ Three days ago he would've thought he could say anything to John, anything, but now there was a whole list of words in his head he couldn't say: paralysis, spine, wheelchair, walk. _My hand is on your thigh-can you feel it?_ His stomach twisted at the thought of the answer, so he did not ask.

When he'd finished drinking, John eased himself back down and pressed his right hand against his side, the movement somewhat hindered by the multiple wires and tubes snaking out from that hand.

"You should probably try to stay still."

"Yeah, but it's bloody uncomfortable." He shifted his right shoulder so it sat a little higher on the pillow and asked, "How many ribs did I break?"

Sherlock grimaced. "Four of them are bruised. Just one cracked-the tenth one." _Which you probably can't feel. _He was amazed at how quickly he'd been able to start censoring himself around John. It didn't feel like much of an accomplishment.

"Well, I guess that's something," John said. His mouth twisted as he settled back against the pillow again.

"Call the nurse. They reduced your painkillers when they were trying to get you to wake up, but they can probably bring them back up now."

"No. It's fine."

"It's not fine if it hurts, John. What kind of horrible doctor are you?"

John sighed. "It's not-. It's fine. Just." He closed his eyes through a couple of deep breaths. Sherlock knew from experience that breathing deeply with injured ribs was not a pleasant sensation.

"It's not fine."

"It is, Sherlock." His eyes were still closed. He paused, then added softly, "At least I can feel it."

Sherlock's breath caught and he found himself again at a loss for words. "John."

John opened his eyes; they were dry. Sherlock's were not. He looked away and picked up the corded call button that hung over the side of the bed. "You should call the nurse anyway. I was supposed to let them know when you woke up."

John took the bulky device from him and pressed the button in the centre. A moment later a voice responded. "I'm supposed to tell you I'm awake," John said, a ghost of a self-conscious smile directed at Sherlock as he said it.

"All right, Dr Watson. Someone will be there in just a minute."

John set the control down on the table next to him. "I don't know any of the nurses over here."

"Oh, so you won't be able to get special favours from them."

"Hmm. I think you're underestimating my ability to get special favours, love." He gave a grin that looked fairly normal; Sherlock was almost able to return it.

The nurse arrived shortly, and introduced herself and asked, "How are you feeling, Dr Watson?"

"Shitty," John replied. "And call me John. I'm a bit more of a patient than doctor at the moment."

She smiled at him and he smiled back. Sherlock could see that he was gritting through the pain but John always flirted with nurses, always, as a doctor and as a patient. He probably couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to, and Sherlock had stopped minding years ago.

He watched as the nurse checked John's vitals and made notes on his chart and helped him find a more comfortable position by inclining the bed so he could sit up a bit. Through it all John kept trying to smile, though Sherlock could see that with every small movement he made the smile became a little less genuine, a little more forced, until finally Sherlock couldn't stand watching anymore.

"He's in a lot of pain," he said.

The nurse was standing at the foot of the bed, writing something on John's chart; she looked over at Sherlock as if surprised he had spoken. He refrained from insulting her ability to observe her patient and simply said, "He won't admit it, but he is. He's not normally that pale, there are far too many lines around his mouth, and his ability to flirt with you is decreased by at least seventy-five percent. Look at his hands."

She frowned and glanced at John, then down at the chart she held. "I can increase the morphine, if you want. Not too much, we need to keep you awake, but a little. If you want."

John started to decline-Sherlock could see the word on his lips-and then he let his head roll back on the pillow and the smile slip from his face. "Yeah. That'd be good, ta," he said.

She wrote something else on the chart and then fiddled with the controls on the machine next to the bed. Sherlock noted the settings, knowing he shouldn't but not really caring, if it meant he might be able to make John hurt less at some point.

Some of the tension eased out of John's face almost immediately and Sherlock let himself relax a little as well. Though another day spent cramped in this chair and he was going to need some morphine of his own. Or at least a cigarette and a hot shower, maybe a back rub. He sighed and slumped down in the chair; it'd be a while before he got a back rub again.

The nurse used the call button to page a doctor who showed up almost immediately, followed by another doctor, and then another nurse. Two male doctors, two female nurses. How stereotypical. John found the second, younger nurse more attractive than the first. Sherlock thought they both wore too much makeup. And both of the doctors were trying and failing to disguise their escalating hair loss. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd admired the physical appearance of any person other than John.

The doctors and nurses all crowded around John's bed and made encouraging noises. John was smiling again, a bit more easily now, as they unclipped wires and removed one of the IV lines, getting him ready to move. Not out of the bed, though; the older nurse kicked off the locks on the wheels so they could roll the whole bed from the room.

"Sherlock." John raised his head to look past everyone who was in between them. "Come with me, yeah?"

"Of course." He pushed himself to his feet. He hadn't left John's side in two days and wouldn't start now, not if John wanted him there, although he realised he was going to have to get some proper sleep eventually. His body was tired but even worse was his mind starting to feel fuzzy and slow.

They wheeled John's bed through the door and down two halls and into an elevator, then had to go through two more halls before they finally reached their destination. Not the most efficiently designed hospital, Sherlock thought.

The taller doctor, Jones or something common like that, was the surgeon who'd operated on John yesterday. He pulled up a copy of John's CT and MRI scans and started talking, flicking his pen against the large computer monitor for emphasis. Sherlock felt slightly ill, looking at the crushed bits of vertebrae and damaged nerve and knowing it was a picture of John's spine, not just a random image on a screen.

Sherlock found a spot near the door where he'd be out of the way. He leaned back against the wall, then shifted over a few feet so his view of the screen was partially blocked by the doctor. He tipped his head to his chest and closed his eyes and half-listened. If he concentrated he could store the information where he could access it later but not have to process it fully right now.

That worked until they finished reviewing the scans and moved on to examining John. Then he had to stop listening entirely, distract himself by counting the floor tiles and mentally rearranging them into more symmetrical patterns.

It got progressively harder not to be affected as the doctors poked and prodded at John's body, rolling him onto his side and then back again. John sounded all right, though, if a bit fuzzy from the drugs; Sherlock would never understand his ability to make small talk under any circumstance. He was still flirting with one of the nurses even as he answered questions about whether he could feel the pressure of a hand or the prick of a pin on his foot or his knee or his pelvis. Most of the answers were "no."

"How about that?"

John's voice. "Er, yeah, it's warm. I can feel that."

"Good, good. How about now?" What were they doing to him? Sherlock opened his eyes but didn't try too hard to see; he felt ill enough as it was without having to look at John's expression, which was likely to be one of either hope or pain, possibly both at the same time.

"No, nothing. Wait, yes, it's cool. Cold."

"Limited temperature sensation preserved on the left side. That's good, John." The doctor kept talking, something about proprioception and vibration sense but Sherlock lost the thread of it. He didn't understand why, though; surely he could comprehend medical terminology at this level. He read John's medical journals all the time, and hardly ever found something he didn't understand. This room, there were too many people in it and the air was too thick. It had a physical presence, pressing against him, making him feel as slow and as stupid as he imagined ordinary people must feel.

He picked up the conversation again a few minutes later. John was sitting up, or trying to. He got himself upright but when he picked up his hands from the bed he had trouble balancing. One of the nurses reached out to steady him, one hand on his hip and one high on his back. John said something low and the nurse and the shorter doctor both laughed, and then John was laughing, too. He was sitting in a hospital bed, unable to move his legs and barely able to sit up on his own and he was laughing.

Sherlock felt sick. If he didn't get out of this room he was going to vomit. It was bad enough that he'd been sick in front of Donovan after John fell. He didn't need to embarrass John by doing it again here, never mind what it would do for his own reputation. _Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective with a weak stomach._

He pushed himself away from the wall and stumbled toward the door. John was talking behind him, still, sounding much better than Sherlock felt. "Could you please-" he heard John say, and then the door swung closed behind him and Sherlock was back in the hallway. The air here was just as pungent and thick but at least there were fewer people around, more space to breathe. He would apologize to John later; he wasn't trying to get away from him, just from that room and everything else in it.

He let himself collapse slowly to the floor, leaning against the wall, his feet pulled carefully in so he wouldn't trip anyone walking by. If he tried very hard maybe he could settle his stomach before John was done.

He didn't get the chance. The door to the room behind him opened and one of the nurses came out. The one John thought was pretty. She squatted down next to Sherlock.

"When was the last time you had something to eat, love?" she asked.

"No, please." He put a hand to his middle in distress.

"All right, no food, but we're putting some peppermint tea in you and then you're taking a nap." She looked past Sherlock at the nurse's station down the hall and caught the eye of another nurse, a broad young man who was almost as tall as Sherlock. He jogged over to them.

"I can't sleep," Sherlock said. "John is-" He waved his hand at the door to the room, the explanation obvious. Honestly, trained medical professionals should know better.

"He'll be a while, still. They're going to do another CT scan and then they might take him down for another MRI. You get some sleep and when you wake up he'll be done."

"I'm not leaving."

"No, wouldn't ask you to, love. You can sleep in his room."

Oh. Well. That didn't sound too bad, actually. He put his hand back to push himself to his feet using the wall as leverage, but the other nurse got in the way and tried to help him up. Sherlock glared at him until he backed away.

"Sorry, mate. You just look a little unsteady. I'll go find a pull-out bed for you."

Sherlock followed the woman to John's room, a trip which seemed to take even longer on the way back. By the time they got there, the male nurse-his nametag said he was called John, which Sherlock refused to say-had already arrived with an ugly vinyl armchair that opened up into a narrow mattress. He fetched a pillow and sheet from the cupboard.

"Thank you," Sherlock said. He tried to keep in mind John's policy of always being nice to the nurses because they would make your life easier, but it was harder than it looked. And he certainly wasn't going to flirt like John. He settled for trying to scowl less. John-the-nurse-definitely-not-smart-enough-to-be-a-doctor-named-John said, "Cheers, mate," and left.

The woman-Nadine-all right, that name was acceptable-disappeared into the hall and then came back a few minutes later with an under-brewed cup of-well, it wasn't really tea if there were no actual tea leaves involved in the making of it, was it? It was just hot water weakly flavoured with mint and some sugar. Though it did sit better in his stomach than anything else would have.

He took off his jacket and sat on the edge of the pull-out bed and sipped at the tea-beverage, staring at the spot where John's bed was supposed to be. He tried to let his mind go blank, a technique at which he was actually quite practised, but at which he'd been failing miserably over the past few days. But even the failing effort was at least moderately distracting, and better than actually letting his thoughts roam free right now.

Nadine bustled around, coming in and out of the room several times, restocking supplies in the cupboard and generally annoying Sherlock with her presence. He'd almost finished the tea when she approached him and held out a tiny plastic cup. There were two pink pills in it. "It's just an antihistamine, but if you're as tired as I think you are, it should knock you out for a couple of hours."

He stared up at her. "I'm fairly certain it's against the rules for you to give drugs to your patients' visitors."

She stared back, a bit more directly than he'd expected. "And I'm fairly certain that my patient is not supposed to have a visitor living in his room 24/7, especially one he's not actually related to, but I guess sometimes the rules don't apply."

"You could lose your nursing licence for giving me drugs."

"It's an over-the-counter allergy drug. Not even a slap on the wrist. Besides, you won't turn me in."

Sherlock kept his glare on her for a few seconds, then took the pills and swallowed them with the last of the tea. "That man talks far too much for his own good."

"Sorry?"

He didn't bother explaining how he knew John had been the one to tell her to give him the pills. Instead he just lay down on the too-short mattress, kicking his shoes off and letting his feet hang off the end. He didn't want to sleep, but short of going back to be with John he didn't know what else to do with himself. _I'd go watch him have the scans right now if I didn't think it would kill me._

Nadine dimmed the lights and said, "Get some rest and you'll feel better when John gets back. You know, when I heard that he was admitted, I was hoping I'd get to meet him and Sherlock Holmes."

He rolled his eyes. "Are we everything you thought we'd be?"

"John is delightful."

"He flirts with everyone. Don't think it means anything. And anyway he has terrible taste in women."

"As for you, I'm going to reserve judgment. Maybe you'll be different after you've gotten some sleep."

"I'm never different," he said, and rolled over so his back was to her. Nadine and nurse-John had been extremely accommodating to him-actually nearly everyone he'd encountered here thus far had been nice to him-and it was driving him mad. Striking out at her didn't feel as good as he'd hoped, though.

He pulled his jacket over his upper body, more as a barrier than blanket, since the hospital room was actually warmer than he found strictly comfortable. The doctors were worried about John's circulation and his ability to maintain his body temperature. If that was permanent, they'd have to find some way to better insulate the flat; it always got dreadfully draughty in the winter. The flat. Sherlock forced his mind away from trying to figure out how they would live at Baker Street if John couldn't walk, never mind manage the stairs.

* * *

><p>They may have been just a couple of allergy pills that he'd taken but they still knocked him out for longer than he wanted. And he would've slept even longer if he hadn't drank all the terrible peppermint not-tea. His bladder was the one part of his body he'd never been able to deny.<p>

Sherlock rolled over on the little bed and saw that John had returned while he'd slept. In fact, he must've been back for a while, because he was asleep again, but there was a tray next to the bed with the remains of a rather disgusting-looking hospital meal on it: sandwich wrapper littered with cheap breadcrumbs, half-empty cup of applesauce, nearly full paper cup of chicken noodle soup. Empty cup of tea, of course. They might have John on the blandest diet possible, but they wouldn't keep him from his tea.

Sherlock got up and used the loo and then came out to stand next to the bed. He poured himself a glass of water and tried to rinse the taste of peppermint and sleep out of his mouth. Then he just stood there for a while, watching John sleep.

He was on his back, the bed once again fully reclined, a thin blanket covering most of his body. John hated sleeping on his back. He said that whenever he had nightmares he was always on his back. Sherlock didn't quite believe that, and had always meant to do a study of it, to see if it was true or if John simply didn't remember all the times when he slept on his back and _didn't_ have a nightmare. He could do it now, ask John every time he woke up what he'd been dreaming of and see if there was any correlation, but the idea held no appeal. This wasn't an experiment or some medical oddity for a case, it was _John_, lying broken in a hospital bed and Sherlock couldn't do anything to fix him.

What he wanted to do was climb into bed next to him. If he had been on his side, there would've been more space and Sherlock might've been tempted; John was small and Sherlock was thin and they'd done it before, ignoring minor gunshot wounds and broken limbs and doctors' orders in favor of the comfort only found in each other's arms. But even if John could lie on his side, even if he weren't restricted to his back until most of the spinal swelling and the danger passed, Sherlock wouldn't have dared, not now. Even the slightest chance of hurting him more was too much to risk.

Although, now that Sherlock had his own little bed, maybe he could . . . .

Sherlock pushed the pull-out bed across the room until it bumped up against John's bed. John didn't stir. Good. He slipped the call button from its spot hanging over the rail. It also had buttons to adjust the bed, including raising and lowering the entire frame. He thought this would be the point where John woke up, but all he did when Sherlock lowered the bed was bring his hands up from underneath the blanket. Now the two beds were at the same height. Sherlock collapsed the railing between them and then slid onto the pull-out mattress. John was facing him, his head tipped just slightly to his right. And now Sherlock was close enough to touch him, close enough to smell him. John actually smelled like medical grade adhesive and chicken soup and unwashed hair at the moment, but Sherlock didn't care.

John's hands were clasped loosely together just beneath his chin. Sherlock slid his hand in between them, careful not to disturb the IV line still in John's right hand. Just one tube now; they'd discontinued the nutritional supplement now that he was conscious. He worked his fingers all the way into John's folded hands, felt John's grip tighten in his sleep. Touching John calmed him, settled his heart and mind in a way that nothing else could. He closed his eyes and exhaled, focused on the feel of John's skin against his, blocked everything else out, because nothing else mattered, just that the two of them were together right now.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, isn't this a sight? Two sleeping beauties."

Sherlock scowled without opening his eyes. "Not asleep," he told Lestrade.

"Yes, you were."

"I was, but not recently." He sat up and tried to run his hands through his hair, but only succeeded in getting his fingers caught in the snarls.

Lestrade picked up the awful plastic chair and brought it over closer to Sherlock. "How's he doing?" He nodded toward John, voice low so as not to wake him.

"Don't bother whispering. You won't wake him up and if you do, good. He's been asleep forever."

Lestrade frowned. "But he's been awake, right? Your text this morning said he was."

Sherlock nodded. "For a while, yes. He had some tests and then he ate lunch and he's been asleep ever since. It's been _hours_."

Lestrade shook his head. "Give the man a break. He's recovering and I'm sure he's on all sorts of drugs that're making him tired."

"So? I took drugs and I'm awake now, aren't I?"

"Wha—Sherlock, what did you take?" Lestrade flipped from concerned friend to investigating officer with barely a blink.

"No, nothing like that." He waved his hand at Lestrade. "Don't be stupid. I took some allergy medicine and slept for a few hours."

"Oh. All right." Lestrade relaxed again. Sherlock would've liked it if the other man had looked at least a little bit embarrassed at his false assumption, but he supposed Lestrade had dragged his half-conscious body from one too many drug dens for that.

"So, other than asleep, how is he?"

"He can't move his legs and he's in a lot of pain. He's pissing through a tube and he's on morphine and even the idea of that is making me feel a bit nauseated, and also a bit jealous. Did you just come by to chat?" _Of course he didn't. He brought several duffel bags in with him, set them down by the door. __John's things; he's been by Baker Street. _

"I didn't think about him being in pain. I guess I thought he wouldn't be able to feel it."

"He fell two storeys and broke his back, Lestrade. Of course he's in pain. It wasn't just one small point of impact."

Lestrade shifted his weight back in the chair, glanced over at John. "What's the prognosis?"

"Not good." Sherlock leaned forward, elbows on knees, and dropped his head into his hands. His hair felt disgusting.

He didn't want to have to give Lestrade the details but it was better that he tell him now, instead of leaving it for John to do when he woke up. He thought back to everything the doctors had told him after the surgery and everything he'd been trying to ignore when John was being examined, spent a moment synthesizing it into something he could say without breaking down.

"His spinal cord was crushed, but not severed. That sounds promising, but it's really not. He can't control any muscles below the injury. It's the T-9 vertebra, which is just about here." Sherlock sat up straight and put two fingers on his own torso, just above his navel. "He has a little bit of sensation below the damage level—he can feel temperature in a few spots but not pressure. There may be some improvement once the spinal swelling goes down all the way, but that will take weeks and the improvement is likely to be minimal. Once he's discharged from hospital—which likely won't be for weeks yet—he'll have to go to an in-patient rehab centre. For at least a month, maybe two."

"Ah, Jesus, Sherlock." Lestrade blew out a breath. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock shrugged and shook his head. "How on earth is that apology supposed to do either of us any good?" He dropped his head again and clasped his hands together, his elbows resting on his knees. His hands were shaking. That made no sense. He wasn't even tired anymore. _I just took two naps._ He pressed his hands together harder, trying to make them stop.

"Hey. Sherlock."

Lestrade was no longer sitting in the chair—he was on the bed next to him. When had that happened? How? He was a bit too close; Sherlock pulled his knees in.

"You all right? You've been staring at your hands for the last five minutes."

"I." He blinked and more time must have passed because now Lestrade's hand was on his shoulder though he hadn't seen him move.

"Maybe you should get some more sleep, eh?"

"No. I'm not tired. It's just . . . thoughts."

"You want to talk about it?"

Sherlock swallowed and looked over at John, who was still sleeping, breathing evenly, his left hand tucked beneath the pillow, his right curled into a loose fist that bristled with plastic tubing. He didn't want to talk about it, he thought he might explode if he didn't, and he definitely didn't want John to overhear. He closed his eyes and said softly, "It was my fault. He followed me out onto the fire escape."

"No, Sherlock, don't think like that." Lestrade paused, then seemed to come to his senses. "What were you doing out there anyway?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I wanted to talk to the kid in the flat across the hall, but he ran when he saw us. I thought we could cut him off if we went out that way."

"Oh. You think he had something to do with it? Because the girlfriend confessed, but she could've had an accomplice." He sounded like he didn't think that was very likely.

"Don't humour me, Lestrade. I made a mistake and John paid for it. I was disappointed that there wasn't much of a case for us and I wanted to do something brilliant and daring to impress him. He likes running after me in the dark. You should see the looks he gives me afterwards." _Gave me. His running after me days are over._ Sherlock's whole body was shaking now; he tried to push himself up to get away but Lestrade's grip tightened on his shoulder.

"This is not your fault. It was just an accident. There was nothing you could've done to predict it or prevent it."

"I—"

"Not even you, Sherlock." Lestrade turned and folded him into a hug and Sherlock didn't stop him. He didn't stop him; he just hunched himself as small as he could and shook against the DI's chest, trying not to make any noise.

When Sherlock finally got himself back under control, Lestrade let go of him, careful not to meet Sherlock's eyes, and said, "It was just bad luck. It could've just as easily been you."

_I'm supposed to say I wish it had been me._ Instead he turned away from Lestrade and straightened his cuffs.

"We are trying to track down the building's owner for code violations. The landlord says he's been telling him for two years that fire escape was rusted out."

"Code violations." Sherlock's hands were shaking again, but this time he recognized anger behind the involuntary movement. Code violations. Maybe they would get the building's owner for code violations. He and John knew their lifestyle always had the risk of physical danger, but when someone threatened them they responded in kind; chase after the perpetrator, throw him up against the wall, make him bleed, make him hurt. Shoot him with John's gun if he was still a threat. Fining someone for a building code violation was not an acceptable alternative.

"Sherlock. Do you want—er, maybe I could talk to one of the doctors. See if they could give you something to help you calm down?"

"No."

"It's just, I know this isn't easy. I don't want you to do anything you'll regret." Lestrade looked as if he were torn between offering another hug and scampering out of Sherlock's reach.

"I'm not going to self-medicate, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Okay. Let me know if it gets too much, though, all right? You want to go home and have a shower and change your clothes? I'll stay with John."

"No. I'm not going home."

"Yeah, thought you might say that." Lestrade heaved himself up off the little bed and crossed the room. He lifted one of the bulging duffels. "That's why I packed a bag for you, too. At least, I think this one's all your stuff. Mrs Hudson helped. It was a little disturbing because we couldn't tell whose pants were whose."

"We both wear the same size. Saves time sorting."

"Don't want to know." He tossed the bag at Sherlock and pointed to the bathroom. "Go. Shower. I'll sit here in case he wakes up."

Sherlock was tempted, but the irrational fear that something horrible would happen if he left John's bedside was hard to shake. He hefted the bag. "I'm not sure—"

"Please have a shower." John hadn't moved but his eyes were open.

"Hey, look who's awake," Lestrade said. Sherlock would've mocked him for how stupid that statement sounded, but he found an equally stupid grin spreading across his face at the sound of John's voice. He leaned forward to cup his cheek and kiss him lightly on the forehead.

John said, "Mm. Shower."

"I'm not the only stinky one in this room."

"Yes, but I am likely to be getting a sponge bath soon and you are not." John gave him a sleepy smile that turned into a yawn. He stretched his arms out to either side and twisted his head back and forth on the pillow. "Christ, but I'm already sick of lying flat on my back. I need to sit up a little."

Sherlock reached for the button to incline the bed but John already had it in his hand. "Not too high," Sherlock cautioned, and John gave him a look that was part amused and part a bit pissed off.

"Yes, thank you, Dr Holmes." He raised the bed a little, as much as he was allowed, and then wiggled his shoulders, trying to scoot up higher on the pillow.

"Come on, John, you know you're not supposed to be moving around that much."

"I am barely moving, Sherlock. I'm just trying to get comfortable."

Sherlock watched, trying to resist the urge to step in and help. He knew John wouldn't be so helpless once he was cleared to move and he had time to build up his upper body strength, but seeing him now. God. After several seconds of watching, he stood up and bent over the bed, pushing and tugging at the pillow until John told him to stop.

"Thanks, but it doesn't really make much of a difference." John's eyes were closed, but he reached for Sherlock's hands, finding them without looking. "It's just uncomfortable." Sherlock watched as John's jaw clenched and unclenched. His hands were sweaty.

"Is it uncomfortable or does it hurt?"

"It's not unbearable."

Sherlock nodded toward the machine next to the bed "They've given you a PCA pump now."

"I know. I'll use it if I need to."

Sherlock picked up the small, corded button that allowed the patient to adjust the morphine dose and set it on the pillow next to John. The thought of being able to use it made his skin itch in a not entirely unpleasant way. He ran his hands over his scraggly face and into his knotted hair. Maybe he would have that shower. "You should at least let the nurse know that you're awake."

"I don't have to tell every time I wake up, Sherlock. They'll be in to check on me when they need to."

"That older nurse was in once while you were asleep. And then a young girl with terrible shoes brought you tea. I drank it."

"Thanks."

"You wouldn't have wanted it to go to waste." He smiled, relieved at the chance to have a normal, non-emotionally-overwhelming conversational exchange. "Lestrade here has brought us the entire contents of our flat."

"Shut up, you'll want all this stuff." Lestrade lifted a blue backpack that Sherlock didn't recall either of them owning. "This here bag's entirely full of electronics—laptops, someone's iPad, an iPod from about 1999—I figure it must be John's."

"The iPod debuted in 2001."

"You know that, but what's my first name, Sherlock? Oh, I also got all the phone chargers I could find and someone's reading glasses." He held up the frames, looking from John to Sherlock and back again.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and John snorted. "You really think he would admit it if he needed glasses?"

"Please. I am far too young to need reading glasses."

"He has grey hairs, Greg, but he snips them short so they hide beneath the curls."

"It's not to hide them. It's just that they're straighter and thicker than the brown so they stick out funny if I don't trim them. Also, they are silver, not grey."

Lestrade and John were both laughing openly now, John's laugh careful and controlled as he pressed a hand against his bruised ribs. With a huff Sherlock picked up the bag of his clothes and toiletries and stalked off into the bathroom. When he got inside he closed the door and then leaned back against it, feeling a thousand times better than he had in days, even if he did smell like a barn. He could still hear John laughing, gasping for breath just a bit. He listened until Lestrade started talking about football and then turned on the taps.

He showered and dressed as quickly as he could and then flung open the door. "Lestrade!"

Lestrade and John both looked up in alarm, and then John started giggling again. "Please, stop, it hurts to laugh. It really hurts."

"I'm sorry," he told John, and then glared at Lestrade.

"What?"

"Not only did you neglect to bring my conditioner, but you didn't even pack a comb. What am I supposed to do about this?" He pointed to his still-dripping hair that he'd been afraid to even towel-dry for fear of tangling it more.

"Ah, cut it off?" Lestrade suggested.

"Look in the cabinet above the sink," John suggested. "There might be a comb. They usually have basic toiletries for patients."

There was a comb, but it was small and flimsy and not much of a match for Sherlock's hair. He did the best he could and then came back out into the room.

"Also, jeans? Really?" He gestured down at his legs, clad in the unfamiliar fabric that for some reason he owned.

"I don't mind," John said. _Ah, yes, that's __why I own __them._

"I thought you'd be upset if I shoved your suits into that bag," Lestrade said. "You should be thankful—I almost brought the pair of jogging bottoms that I saw in your bottom drawer."

Sherlock groaned. "Those are only for when I'm undercover."

Lestrade looked at him. He'd seen Sherlock in those trousers, and not undercover. Years ago, though, not since John. Lestrade seemed to understand and didn't say anything.

Sherlock shoved his fingers through his wet, half-combed hair one last, futile time and said, "I'm going to go find something to eat. Do you want anything, Lestrade?"

"Nah, I'm not anywhere near desperate enough to eat hospital canteen food."

"I am." He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, but this was the first time in days that he felt hungry instead of sick to his stomach. "John, I'll get you a tea. Since I drank yours."

"Thanks, love."

Sherlock felt another stupid grin threatening and quickly excused himself from the room, resisting the urge to kiss John goodbye. He wanted to, but he was afraid a kiss would turn into a sloppy, heated exchange that didn't end until he climbed into bed next to John, embarrassing Lestrade and possibly hurting John in the process. There'd be time for that later. Right now he'd settle for a sandwich and the largest coffee he could find.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I've edited the last two chapters a bit to try to make the medical bits more realistic. I might end up compressing the timeline for John's recovery in the interest of moving the story along.<em>


	4. Chapter 4

Days passed. Possibly weeks. Sherlock wasn't really paying attention. His phone died and he didn't bother charging it. The only person he cared to hear from was right in front of him. Stuck in bed and still drugged, John slept. A lot. So did Sherlock. Not as much as John, but much more than he normally did.

When they were both awake, John usually put on the telly. Always crappy daytime programmes. Sherlock would push his pull-out mattress up next to John's bed and rest his head on the edge of John's pillow and pretend to watch the show while actually watching John's chest rise and fall with each breath he took. It was hypnotic.

Sometimes John would read the news online and try to tell him about cases they were missing, but Sherlock usually just tuned him out. He wasn't about to leave John here and go out on a case, and anything he might have been able to solve from the room was too boring to be worth his time.

When John slept and Sherlock wasn't tired, he would steal John's iPod and spend hours listening to horrible twenty-year-old pop songs. He was tempted to ask Lestrade or Mrs Hudson to bring his violin to the hospital, but it was too valuable, both sentimentally and monetarily, to even consider. There was a small cupboard where they could lock up their laptops and other electronics, but it wasn't big enough for the violin and Sherlock wouldn't have trusted it anyway. So he listened to John's terrible music and stared off into space and fell asleep far more frequently than he expected. He was bored, yes, and he was used to being bored and of course didn't like it, but this was a different sort of boredom, a suspension, an intermission from real life that was both better and worse than regular boredom. Better because John was there, always; he wasn't off at work or out drinking at a pub with his army mates. And worse because Sherlock didn't know how or if this new boredom would ever end.

He only ventured out of the room when he needed to get food or very occasionally when he wanted to give John some privacy. But John usually wasn't particularly self-conscious, and receiving pointed looks from a doctor or nurse just tended to make Sherlock more inclined to stay. Though sometimes if needles were involved he found somewhere else to be. Needles tended to provoke in Sherlock feelings he preferred not to have.

He did try to shower at least every other day, and Mrs Hudson came by a couple of times to drop off clean clothes and take the dirty ones home to wash. Still just jeans, though, no suits. Just because he'd yelled at her that one time about using the wrong dry cleaner. And that was years ago. But she said she wasn't going to touch his suits, and if he wanted something different to wear he'd need to go home and get it himself. So he made do with the jeans; at least he didn't have to worry about wrinkles. John, meanwhile, was still relegated to hospital gowns.

Finally, finally, finally, John was given the okay to sit up and move around more freely. It was possible that Sherlock was more excited about this than John was. John just moaned about how stiff his back was and then insisted on eating breakfast; Sherlock thought about how much closer they now were to going home again.

He was happy enough that he agreed to get breakfast for himself from the canteen; he sat cross-legged on the pull-out bed next to John and nibbled at a muffin while John ate muesli and toast with jam.

"Do you want my cranberries?" Sherlock gestured at the small pile of slightly soggy dried berries he'd pulled out of his muffin.

"Why did you get a cranberry muffin if you didn't want the cranberries?"

"I thought they were blueberries."

John gave him his patented _You are the stupidest genius ever_ look and Sherlock suppressed a grin. "In my defence, it's very early in the morning to expect me to identify berries correctly."

John just shook his head and scooped up the pile of cranberries, popping them all into his mouth at once. He grinned with his mouth full, berries oozing around his teeth, and Sherlock snorted. "How old are you? Five?"

"You're the one who just picked apart your breakfast with your fingers so you wouldn't have to eat fruit." The words were a bit muffled by the fruit in question.

"I would've eaten them if they were blueberries," Sherlock insisted, and looked up as there was a rap on the door.

"Yeah, come on in," John called, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. He glanced over at Sherlock, a puzzled look on his face. His doctor had already been by this morning, so this was a bit off-routine.

One of John's nurses came through the door backwards, holding it open with her hip and elbow as she manoeuvred a bulky wheelchair into the room. "Good morning, John," she said, entirely too perky for Sherlock's taste.

John made a sound that wasn't quite a word; Sherlock looked over at him in alarm. He'd gone quite pale, his pallor contrasting sharply with the cranberry smears on the napkin he still clenched in his hand. He dropped it on top of his plate and swallowed audibly.

"Oh, no, sweetie, finish your meal. I'll be back in a few minutes. 'Bout time you got out of that bed, don't you think?"

John answered with another grunt, very uncharacteristic of the way he usually acted with the nurses. He talked with them about their families and knew all their names-this one was Kathy or Kathleen, something like that. She'd shown them several pictures of-a son? daughter? There'd been a dog in one of them.

Kathy pulled the door shut behind her as she left and John shoved away the tray that held his half-eaten breakfast. "Sherlock, I can't—"

What? It wasn't about the food; John nodded toward the wheelchair and then folded his hands in his lap, breathing heavily. _No pain or physical distress. Purely an emotional response._

Sherlock swallowed. He could handle this. Emotional comfort didn't always come naturally to him, but he'd been waiting and preparing himself for this, knowing John was bound to break down and need him at some point. He just didn't expect it to be today, when he was finally allowed to actually get up out of bed.

Sherlock lowered the railing on the bed so he could perch on the edge, next to John. "Look at me." John turned his head and Sherlock slid closer, so their hips were touching, and leaned his forehead against John's. He sorted through the possibilities of what he could say, but almost everything would be a lie. _It'll be okay. It's not that bad. There's nothing to worry about. I'm here for you._That last one was true, but perhaps more easily expressed without words.

He wrapped both arms around John's shoulders, felt John turn his torso a bit more toward him and tried to remember not to hurt his still-healing his ribs. He'd once read that hugging for twenty seconds or longer stimulated the release of oxytocin, which should help calm and reassure John; Sherlock was willing to hold him for a thousand times that, to never let him go. This was the closest they'd been to each other in weeks.

"You're giving me one of those twenty-second hugs, aren't you?" John seemed amused; he knew Sherlock too well.

Sherlock smiled. "Longer." _You feel so good against me._

John slid his left arm around Sherlock and moved his head so his chin rested on Sherlock's shoulder. "I just . . . don't want to get in that chair."

Sherlock knew that summed it up, though the reasons why were a million times more complicated. "It is an ugly chair," he said. "You'll get a better looking one, obviously."

"Right. Can't let your blogger be seen in an ugly wheelchair."

"Nope." He grazed his lips over John's chin and cheek, not quite a kiss. John had been shaving but not regularly; he now had three or four days' worth of gingery-grey stubble, almost a beard. Sherlock was a little jealous.

They pulled away from each other eventually. Sherlock stood up and John reached over to grab the cup of tea he hadn't finished. The hospital gown he wore gapped open in the back and Sherlock could see that he still had a brilliant constellation of variously coloured bruises that reached almost to his neck. He realised even brushing against John must've hurt, never mind hugging him. He was still taking morphine, but not very much.

"You'll finally be able to wear your own pyjamas now, if you want," Sherlock said, and turned away, unable to look at him for a moment. The pyjamas were still in the duffel bag Lestrade had brought the day John first woke up; Sherlock had never unpacked most of it. The bag had been pushed into the corner of the room, forgotten; now the wheelchair sat in front of it. Sherlock started to step around the chair, had an urge to shove it out of the way, and then abruptly turned and dropped down to sit in it himself.

"Wha—what are you doing?" John paused with his tea halfway to his mouth.

"Just trying it out."

"Don't." He clunked the cardboard cup down onto the tray hard enough to slosh the tea out onto his hand. He grabbed a napkin and wiped up the spill without looking at Sherlock, then repeated, "Please, don't."

It took Sherlock a moment to process the emotion in John's voice, and he still wasn't sure exactly what the problem was, but a quick analysis told him the safest thing to do was say, "All right," and get up out of the wheelchair. "Sorry." He smoothed his shirt front when he stood and then picked up the bag to look for John's pyjamas. _Every time I think I can understand him._

The nurse returned before he'd located the pyjamas. Actually, two nurses came into the room—no, one nurse, Kathy, and one nursing assistant: twenty-three, didn't really like hospital work, needed the job, wasn't attracted to John. She'd be better off going back to work at her parents' restaurant, but Sherlock knew better than to attempt that conversation.

Okay, sweetie, you ready now?" Kathy was always very motherly toward John, although she couldn't have been more than a half-dozen years his senior. "Let's just get this bed straightened out first." She pulled the railing back up and pushed the button to lower the bed flat again. John leaned forward, holding onto the railings as the bed shifted around him. Once the mattress was flat Kathy pushed another button and the entire bed sank, ending up only a couple of feet off the ground, about the same height as the wheelchair.

The two women helped John manoeuvre to the edge of the bed and then John sat with his legs hanging over the side while the nursing assistant adjusted the wheelchair. He fidgeted with the hem of his hospital gown, not looking at Sherlock or either of the women, then he pushed at the catheter tube running down his leg, but with the gown only reaching his knees there was nowhere for him to hide the tube or the bag it led to.

Kathy gave him a sympathetic smile. "Once you're able to get back and forth to the loo easily, that can come out," she said.

Instead of looking pleased, John grimaced. "Yeah, and then I'll have to use an intermittent, right?"

She shrugged. "Most likely. Can't say for sure." She collapsed the bed railing again. "Is the chair ready, Anna?"

Anna nodded; she'd removed the armrest on the side closest to the bed and pushed the leg rest out of the way.

John looked down at his legs and then over at the chair. "I can probably—"

"Nope. Not yet. Between your injuries and your meds you're not allowed to even try." Kathy and Anna moved to either side of John and Sherlock looked away, feeling like he needed to give him a moment of privacy. Which was fairly ridiculous, since they'd certainly seen each other in far more intimate positions. Still, he made a point of turning his back and unpacking more of John's bag, still looking for his pyjamas. There they were, on the bottom. _Excellent packing strategy, Lestrade. Most useful items on the bottom._

He turned back to find John seated in the chair, looking as if he couldn't decide whether to sit up straight or hunch in shame and try to disappear. Although to be fair, a lot of that may have been due to the pain Sherlock knew he was in. He held up the pyjamas and Kathy said, "Perfect. How about a shave and a shower? We can roll the chair right into the shower."

"You don't _have_ to shave," Sherlock added, handing John the pyjamas.

"Yes, I do. And so do you." John settled back in the chair and didn't object when the nursing assistant—Anna—steered him into the bathroom. Definitely in a lot of pain; there was no way John would let another person literally push him around if he were at all able to move on his own.

Kathy followed Anna and John into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. Momentarily at a loss as to what to do now that he was alone, Sherlock paused for a moment.

He'd barely touched his laptop since they'd been here; he was aware of nothing online that could hold his interest. Now he pulled it out of the cupboard, plugged it in and sat in the middle of the bed John had just vacated. He considered checking his email but that seemed like a waste of energy. Instead he opened a browser, typed "intermittent catheters" into the search box, read for a bit and then breathed a sigh of relief. _Not as bad as it could be._ Feeling optimistic, he next attempted to research different styles of wheelchairs and almost immediately gave up. Far too many options to even know where to begin. _Possibly something I need to let John do for himself._ He sighed, closed his laptop, and stretched out in the bed so he could think while he waited for John to finish with his shower.


	5. Chapter 5

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock blinked himself back into the hospital room. He had a feeling that wasn't the first time John had tried to get his attention.

"Hey. Welcome back. Trip to the Mind Palace?"

"Yes." At least, that had been his intention, although he'd ended up mostly wandering aimlessly through the halls rather than thinking about or discovering anything useful. "Sorry."

"No problem. Quite used to it." John must have been out of the shower for a while, because the nurse and her assistant were nowhere to be seen and his hair was nearly dry. He sat in the wheelchair, wearing his pyjamas with his dressing gown over the top of them and a pair of slippers on his feet.

Sherlock sat up and tried to straighten his clothes. "You want your bed back?"

"No. Though I think an orderly's going to be in to change the sheets soon. But, ah." John drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair, looking sheepish, before admitting, "I'm bored."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"I know. Shut up. I actually have reason to be bored, unlike you most of the time. There's nothing good on the telly and I've read all the news I can take for the day." He took a deep breath. "Take me for a walk."

"Okay." Sherlock stretched and blinked again, trying to bring himself fully back to the present. A walk. That sounded wonderful, actually. John was suddenly flushing bright red, though. "Are you all right?"

"What? Yeah, of course I am." John rolled his shoulders and pulled his dressing gown tighter.

_Ah. Embarrassment, most likely at having to ask to be taken for a walk. Ridiculous, of course. Best to ignore for the moment. _Sherlock shifted his line of enquiry accordingly. "Are you due for another pill?"

John shook his head and relaxed fractionally. "Took one about twenty minutes ago while you were off mind-palacing. It should kick in soon, I hope." He sighed and scratched at the back of his hand. "I kind of miss the IV. At least it was fast."

"Hm, drug-seeking behaviour." Sherlock smirked as he stood up. "I'll have to make a note on your chart."

John tilted his head and growled; Sherlock danced away from his hand so he didn't get flicked, then relented and bent down toward John.

John brought both hands up to rest against Sherlock's shoulders. Their faces were inches apart; Sherlock could feel the warmth of John's breath. They held each other's gaze for a moment and then John leaned up and forward a bit and his lips were dry but familiar and sorely, sorely missed.

Sherlock closed his eyes and put one hand on John's outstretched arm, cupped the other around the back of his neck. He had to hunch over more than he was accustomed to, but he thought he could get used to it. He opened his mouth to John's tongue, felt a brief surge of lust as John's teeth scraped his lower lip, and then John pulled away, dropping his chin to his chest. Sherlock pressed his lips against John's damp hair and John exhaled and said, "Okay," as if that settled some longstanding debate they'd been having.

Sherlock stepped back and John raised his chin and straightened his shoulders. "A walk, then?" Sherlock confirmed and John nodded once.

While Sherlock slipped on his shoes, John hesitantly experimented with moving the wheelchair back and forth. Sherlock looked down at his feet as he tied his laces and said, carefully, "Are you supposed to be doing that?"

"No one specifically told me not to," John answered, and Sherlock hummed in reply. He wasn't one to preach about following the rules, but he doubted John would've asked to be "taken for a walk" if he was supposed to be pushing himself around.

He stood up and tried to stick his hands in his pockets, could only fit a few fingers. _Jeans are too tight, damn_. It made acting casual more difficult. "You can push yourself until you get to the hallway. Then I take over so we don't get yelled at by one of the scary nurses."

"The nurses aren't scary, Sherlock." The slight turn John made to head toward the door wasn't the most graceful move ever, but he was figuring it out quickly enough.

"Mm. Come on. Maybe we can find some sort of crime to solve."

After his earlier reluctance to even get into the wheelchair, Sherlock expected John to be more self-conscious, but he didn't seem to mind being pushed around. Of course, they were in hospital, so he didn't exactly stand out, except in that he actually looked a good bit healthier than most of the other patients they saw.

Walking together through hospital corridors was not exactly the most exciting thing they'd ever done, but after weeks of doing not much more than watching John sleep and eat and putting up with his dreadful telly choices, Sherlock was glad to be out of John's room. He still felt awkward, though; he wasn't supposed to be behind John, when they walked. They should be next to each other, holding hands. He inhaled, trying to force himself to be comfortable, hoping John wouldn't notice. _Say something. Talk. Distract him. Make him laugh. _John liked his voice almost as much as he liked chasing after Sherlock in the dark, so maybe Sherlock could give him that, at least. What else did John like? He liked it when Sherlock was brilliant; unfortunately he had not yet been able to detect any unsolved crimes hidden in the hospital today.

They were several corridors away from John's room by now, near the reception desk for out-patient surgery. A skinny woman in a beige blouse was on the phone; through the open door behind her Sherlock could see nurses and other employees coming and going from a series of interconnected offices. Nothing particularly exciting about any of them, but maybe . . . .

He pushed John's chair over into a small nook where the hall turned and leaned up against the wall behind him. "Don't look at her but I need to tell you something about that mousy little receptionist over there." He lowered his head to whisper in John's ear, trying to see how ridiculous he could be without it being an instant giveaway.

"Sherlock, you are making that up."

"John. You know my methods. Everything I say is truth." He tried to keep the corners of his lips from betraying him, failed.

"There is no way that receptionist is secretly hoarding antibiotics in case of a zombie apocalypse."

"That's why she took this job. Why else would she leave her position at the church? When the world didn't end in 2012, she decided it would be zombies that did us in, and—"

"You are completely making up every word of that, Sherlock."

"No, I'm not. Look, she's wearing trainers with a long skirt. Of course she used to work at a fundamentalist church. Go on over there and ask her about it."

"Er, no, I think I'll pass on that one." He was laughing, though, and so Sherlock had achieved his goal even if John didn't believe him.

The look of pure admiration on John's face gave Sherlock a little thrill that had been absent for weeks. He bent forward to whisper another lie into John's ear; he was so distracted he didn't even notice when someone stopped in the middle of the hall a half-dozen feet away from them.

The camera phone flashed and Sherlock startled up in surprise. John had gone absolutely rigid in front of him.

Less than a heartbeat and Sherlock was around John and grabbing the phone away from the man before anyone else had time to react.

"Oi, that's my phone!" The man reached for it but Sherlock turned and held it out of reach, blocking the man with his hip. He swiped to the photo that had just been taken and then jabbed at the screen to delete it.

"You can't just do that! That's my phone!" The man was shouting now, and they had the attention of nearly everyone else in earshot. Sherlock glanced up to see several people in scrubs edging toward them, and one very large security guard walking down the hall, hand casually placed on the two-way radio at his hip. _Good. The more witnesses, the better._

"Are you a reporter, or just an idiot?"

The man narrowed his eyes and reached for the phone again.

"Idiot, then. No one would pay you for that picture." He raised his voice. "And I'm quite certain there are confidentiality laws preventing you from photographing hospital patients without their consent." Sherlock handed the phone back just as the security guard reached them. "Next time you don't get it back," he growled, and then dropped his shoulders and looked up at the guard, pulling on his best innocent victim face.

"Mr Holmes," the guard greeted him. Sherlock didn't remember meeting him, but he hadn't been saving any details about most of the people he'd encountered over the past few weeks. "There a problem?"

He didn't even have to lie. "This man took our picture. I deleted it for him."

The guard turned toward the man with the phone and started asking him why he was there. Sherlock stepped back toward John, put a hand on his shoulder. John shifted into the touch; good, he wasn't going to prickle about Sherlock being too protective.

The idiot with the phone gave Sherlock one last glare as the guard escorted him away, not exactly physically removing him but clearly encouraging him to leave and not return.

The half-dozen employees who had subtly wandered closer when they thought a fight might erupt now returned to their previous business. One of the lab technicians who'd drawn John's blood a few times walked by and gave both of them a flirtatious smile. Both of them. Sherlock frowned in bewilderment and John smiled back at her, then reached for Sherlock's hand when she passed. Sherlock glanced down. The expression on John's face caught him by surprise: a grin much darker and more intimate than the one he'd had just a few minutes earlier.

"John. Stop looking at me like that. Public." It would've been fine but Sherlock's jeans were much tighter than his usual trousers and John hadn't looked at him like that in quite some time and it was making things _uncomfortable_.

"Sorry." John, clearly not sorry at all, kept right on looking at him.

"Why are you—stop it!"

"Can't help it. You defending my honour and all. Makes me happy."

"Defending your honour?"

"Well, preventing my honour from being photographed in my dressing gown and slippers, at least."

"John." He met his eyes, giving him the _my idiot _look without saying it. "I was in the photograph as well." He waved his hand down his own body, indicating how he was dressed.

"You look fine."

Sherlock tipped his head toward John, pointed to his hair. He'd given up trying to get it properly tousled weeks ago, settling instead for not too matted.

"Oh. Well, it's better than the hat, right?"

"And I haven't shaved in days."

"No one can see that, love. Not in a photo. You have to get really close."

Sherlock squinted in mock anger and ducked down to steal a kiss. "Come on. I think you've had enough excitement for your first time out."

Back in John's room, the bed sheets had indeed been changed and there was a lunch waiting on the tray next to the bed. "More turkey," John said, and groaned. "There better be real food in rehab." He reached for the sandwich anyway, and took a messy bite, a bit of tomato plopping out from between the layers of bread. He tilted his head back and shrugged his shoulders a few times as he chewed.

"You're tired." Sherlock sank into the armchair that was normally his bed; someone had been in to clean the room and fold up the chair.

John swallowed his bite of sandwich. "Apparently being pushed around is harder than it looks."

"John, give yourself a break. It's the first time you've been out of bed at all." Even just showering had probably been more than his muscles were accustomed to.

"I know. It's just—" He shrugged.

"It'll get better."

"I know," John repeated, taking another big bite of the sandwich. "You know, I am a doctor. I know these things."

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I had heard you were a doctor, but I was confused, because you have the manners of a goat."

John made a kissing motion, mouth still full. "Love you, too, sweetie pie."

Sherlock chuckled and watched John finish up the sandwich in a few more giant bites. _I guess getting out of bed burns a lot of calories. _

John wiped his mouth, rolled the tray table to the end of the bed and sighed. "I probably do need to take a nap." He lowered the bed with the controls and then flexed his hands and arms as if preparing to try to get himself into it.

"Don't even think about it," Sherlock told him.

John looked over at him. "You think I can't do it."

"I have no doubt that you will be able to do it. I also think you're not at your strongest at the moment and that you're heavier than you think you are."

John put his hands on the arms of the chair. Sherlock could see the strain in his shoulders as he lifted himself up an inch or two for a very brief moment and then relaxed. He scrubbed his hand across his face and said, "I really hate it when you're right."

"That must be difficult for you. Since I'm always right."

"Hmph," John said, but he was grinning as he reached for the nurse call button.

"Don't." Sherlock stood up. "I can do it for you."

John looked hesitant for a moment but then nodded. "Were you paying attention at all earlier?"

Sherlock shook his head. _No, I was deliberately looking away. _ "I've lifted you plenty of times before, John. It's not as if I need to carry you around the room."

"All right." John wiped his hands on his thighs. "Ah, let's see. I need to lock the wheels." He reached down and pushed a lever on each side and then fiddled with the side of the wheelchair next to the bed until he got the arm off. "So, just, lift straight up, don't twist, use your legs, not your back, erm . . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know." Sherlock leaned forward and got his arms under John's arms and around his back. It didn't really take much work physically, just the mental effort to convince himself that he would not hurt John. He didn't. John held onto him and moved easily onto the bed. Sherlock helped him straighten his legs; it didn't feel too much different from his usual manhandling of John, as long as he didn't think about it too much.

John sighed and relaxed back into his pillow. "Hmm. Eat the rest of my lunch or sleep?"

"Whichever you want," Sherlock replied. The syrupy-looking pears and some rather rigid pudding didn't look particularly appealing but John wasn't very fussy.

"You should go get some more food for yourself. I'll nap until you get back."

Sherlock nodded. He wasn't really hungry but it would give John a chance to rest. He picked up the bed's control and raised it to its normal height, then leaned over for a quick kiss. John caught him in his arms and lengthened the kiss, then said, softly, "Thank you." Sherlock wasn't sure what that was for—the kiss? Helping him into bed? Walking around the hospital with him? Knowing John, he was just thanking him for existing. He shook his head at the sentiment. "I'll take my time so you can sleep a bit."


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock spent almost an hour sitting alone in the canteen, eating some sort of baguette that tasted like yeast and drinking a large cup of coffee that had been cold for most of that hour. Usually he brought his food back to the room; being away from John for this long—even if John was asleep—was making his skin crawl.

Eventually he couldn't wait any longer and made his way back through the too-familiar hospital halls. John was likely to be discharged soon and Sherlock would not be sorry to see the last of this place. _Except John still has rehab, and I'm not going to be able to stay with him there._

Mycroft was standing outside of John's room. Sherlock bristled at the sight of him, his usual anger at seeing his brother mixing with just a bit of joy at the prospect of having someone with whom he could start a fight.

"I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you're in my way," Sherlock said. "Move." Mycroft had been here once before, arriving almost immediately after John had been admitted, before he'd even been taken into surgery. He'd confirmed that John was alive and likely to stay that way, made sure that no one was trying to block Sherlock from having access to John, then made sure that Sherlock would be blocked from having access to any sort of narcotics, which was ridiculous, since he hadn't been injured himself and if he wanted to break into the hospital's pharmacy then Mycroft wasn't going to stop him. John had gone into surgery, Sherlock had settled down to wait with his head in his hands and his heart in his throat and Mycroft had said something about work and left. Sherlock hadn't heard a word from him since. Of course, his phone had been dead for a while now.

"I said, move," Sherlock repeated, trying to push past Mycroft without actually touching him.

Mycroft didn't move, just rested his folded hands on the handle of his umbrella. "If you don't want me here, then I'll just retrieve the two suits I left in John's room and you can continue to wear your . . . blue jeans."

Sherlock scowled. "John likes me in jeans."

"Yes, and I'm sure your arse is uppermost on his mind at the moment."

"I've been stuck here for weeks and _now_ it occurs to you to bring me better clothes?"

"You know as well as I that nothing has been preventing you from going home and getting whatever items you thought you needed."

Sherlock took a deep breath, considering which words would best work to inform his brother what it was like to actually care about someone, and Mycroft sighed. "I didn't come here to snipe at you, believe it or not. I came to warn you."

Sherlock tensed, his typical buoyant reaction to a possible threat completely absent. He did not have time for whatever horrible scenario might be about to play out. Murder, kidnapping, terrorist threat: nothing could possibly be that interesting or important. "Warn me about what?"

"Mummy and Daddy are here. I tried to convince them that John couldn't have too many visitors at once, but . . . ." He shrugged.

Sherlock understood. Both he and Mycroft could convince almost anyone of anything. Except for Mummy and Daddy. "But they've got another week left on their motorbike tour, haven't they?"

"Sherlock, they've been back for almost two weeks. I've been trying to keep them away for days, trust me."

Sherlock blew out a breath. "Thank you, for that, at least. Where are they? The family lounge?"

Mycroft's face was carefully blank, but he tipped his head back a miniscule amount, toward the door behind him.

Sherlock's eyes widened. "What? You left them in there with John? I knew you were a rubbish big brother, but this—"

"Now, now, Sherlock. You know very well how they feel about John. They find him charming and he's always ever so good with them."

"Yes, but he's—his defences are down!"

"Defences? Sherlock, they're our parents. They're worried about John. And you. There's no sinister intent."

"Then why did you feel the need to _warn_ me that they're here?"

Mycroft studied his umbrella, not meeting Sherlock's eyes. "I'm not precisely certain what they're up to, but I suspect an ulterior motive for their visit."

"What—what do they want, Mycroft?"

"Just remember that they mean well, Sherlock, even if they are sometimes misguided. And I trust I don't need to tell you to stand firm in the face of Mummy's pleadings, and do what's best for you and John."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and Mycroft shrugged and stepped to the side, allowing him access to the room. "It is rather crowded in there. I believe I'll wait out here."

"Yes. Do that." Sherlock swept past Mycroft and shut the door behind him, leaning against it briefly before turning around to face his parents and John.

John was propped up in bed again, blanket pulled up to his waist. He hadn't slept at all, that much was clear, but he didn't look upset at the delay of his planned nap. But then, he did tend to be overly tolerant when it came to Sherlock's parents.

Sherlock shifted his gaze. A zippered garment bag was hung over the curtain rod at the window, a new vase of flowers on the sill next to it. His mother sat on the vinyl chair that was usually Sherlock's bed, and his father had pulled the plastic chair over to sit next to her. The room was really too small to fit all of them comfortably. There was no place left for Sherlock to sit.

"Sherlock!" His mother's voice seemed a little too loud for the space. "You've lost weight. Those jeans are still too tight for a man your age, though."

Sherlock put both hands over his eyes and said, "Oh. My. God," perfectly aware that it made him sound like a sixteen-year-old girl but unable to help himself. "Why are you here?"

"Sherlock," John hissed and Sherlock dropped his hands and gave him a faintly murderous glare.

"Sherlock," his mother said. "John is in hospital. Of course we're here."

"He's been here for nearly a month! You certainly haven't been around until now." _Not that I wanted them here earlier. _

"Come, sit. You're right, John, he does look exhausted." His mother crossed her legs and patted the tiny corner of the chair that was free next to her.

"How small do you think I am, Mum?" He walked around John's bed and then sat down on the end of it, facing his parents. The side of his hand brushed against John's blanket-shrouded foot. For a brief moment, some slow part of Sherlock's brain expected John to either twitch away or nudge his foot into the contact. Then he remembered and pulled his hand back, curling it into his lap instead. John didn't notice and Sherlock looked across the short space between the bed and his mother's chair and recalled being a very small child, running to her outstretched arms when he hurt himself. But he was a grown man now, and he wasn't even the one who was hurt and he was not going to let his mother turn him into a puddle of emotions. _No_.

His mother was talking, babbling, really. "You can heat it up in the microwave in the family lounge." She dragged a giant, insulated bag out from beside her chair. "There are plates and utensils in the bottom of the bag. I tried to keep everything fairly bland, but I know you're not on a restricted diet anymore, John, so I thought you might appreciate some home cooking."

"Thank you. I'm sure it's delicious." John sounded so sincere; Sherlock would've envied his ability to lie but he knew he probably really did mean it.

"And how did you know about John's diet change, Mum?" he asked, thinking it would do John good to see how she worked; he always seemed to think Sherlock's parents were so innocent.

"Why, I talked to several of his nurses, of course. Most direct way to get answers, don't you think?"

"That's confidential information, Mum. You can't just call and expect someone to tell you all about a patient's treatment."

"It's fine, Sherlock," John said. That had to be a lie; there was no way a doctor should approve of breaching patient confidentiality law.

Sherlock crossed his arms and glared. His mother smiled and said, "There's chicken and potatoes and veg and custard."

"You might want to avoid the custard," his father put in, and leaned away with practiced ease, dodging the swat Sherlock's mother aimed at him. "It can just be a little hard to digest, sometimes." He winked at John and then didn't duck in time to avoid the next swat.

John smiled. "It all sounds very good. I have been complaining about the food here, so thank you."

Sherlock pulled the bag of food over so he could peek inside. "There's a whole chicken in here."

"Sherlock, a whole chicken is not too much food for two grown men," his mother said.

Sherlock huffed. "I'm not eating the dark meat."

"He means thank you," John said, and gave Sherlock a look. He probably would've kicked him if he could. Sherlock's throat tightened and he tugged the bag closer.

"I do like your custard," he admitted. "Thank you." There. Now no one could complain he was rude and his parents could leave.

"Well, that's what we're here for, after all," his mother said, glancing over at his father, who nodded and added, "Anything you need, boys." Mycroft was right; they were definitely up to something.

His mother cleared her throat, lifted her chin, and said, "Now, boys, we have something to tell you. Sherlock, your father and I have discussed it, and we agree. You and John will move in with us."

Sherlock wasn't sure what he'd been expecting her to say, but that was not it. His mouth may have fallen open in surprise. He clamped it shut, glanced over to see that John was equally flummoxed, then opened his mouth again to say, "No."

"Sherlock, our house will be much more easily adapted to a wheelchair. Plus, it's much healthier, being out in the country. Better for the body and the mind to heal. And your father and I can look after you both."

"That is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. That is so ridiculous I don't even know where to begin to refute it." He looked at John again just to make sure he still agreed.

"Sherlock, at least consider it." His father used his kindly old man voice to try to trick him, but Sherlock knew better.

"No."

"John gets a say in this, too." His mother turned to face John, whose eyes were wide with panic.

"He thinks it's the most absolutely ridiculous thing he's ever heard, although he might be inclined to phrase it more nicely," Sherlock said, and looked to John to hear his confirmation.

John swallowed and squared his shoulders back. "It's a very generous offer," he said, sounding very composed. He was always so good under pressure. "But I don't want to leave London."

Sherlock scoffed. "That's the whole reason we met in the first place, Mum. He couldn't afford to live here on his own but he was desperate enough to stay that he agreed to live with me." He couldn't help but smile at the memory, and risked a small sideways glance to see John grinning, too.

His mother leaned forward and reached across the space between them to grab Sherlock's hand in both of hers. She made some sort of tutting noise at him and then she glanced over at his father and raised her eyebrows.

His father leaned forward as well, clasping his hands together. "If you're absolutely certain, both of you . . . ."

"We are."

"Well, perhaps then we could . . . ."

Sherlock pulled his hand away from his mother and turned to look at his father. "What insane idea are you having now?"

"Hmm. I just thought maybe, well, your mother and I, we could help out. With your flat, I mean."

"Help with our flat? Please start making sense, Dad."

"Sherlock, dear, you're just not thinking clearly." His mother patted his knee. "It's okay, we know you're under a lot of stress. You live on the second floor of an overcrowded little flat. It's going to need a lot of modifications, so your father and I will help out."

"With the cost, she means." His father gave him that vacant little smile he always used and Sherlock squinted at him. Something still seemed off, but the offer was too appealing for him to worry about it.

"That could be quite a lot of money," he said. Of course he would take their money. John kept track of the finances, and while Sherlock thought they were quite comfortable at the moment, he suspected it would be some time before either one of them had an income again. And he certainly wasn't averse to living off others' goodwill. John was the one who always insisted on being self-sufficient.

"Oh, don't worry about that." His mother gave a little wave of her hand, accompanied by the slightly disdainful look that people who have never had to worry about money used when forced to discuss it.

Sherlock looked over at John. The urge to touch him was too hard to resist, so he rested his hand lightly on John's ankle, feeling the curve of the bone through the thin blanket. If John noticed, he gave no sign of it. He addressed Sherlock's parents instead. "That's—that's extremely generous of you. But I don't think we can accept—"

Sherlock cut him off. "Oh, of course we can. It'll be my money one day anyway." That earned him a look of disbelief from his mother and a chuckle from his father.

John licked his lips and nodded his head. "All right. Thank you, really." He still looked a little uncomfortable about it, but then John and his parents were never really going to live in the same world when it came to money matters.

"Brilliant." His mother clapped her hands together. "Your father knows some good contractors. We'll have them pop round the flat to take a look."

_Right. __Enough of this, then._Sherlock turned to John. "John, did you get a chance to nap while I was gone?"

"Er, no, actually."

That got both of his parents to stand up quickly enough. John looked embarrassed, but he didn't try to get them to stay longer, either.

"Don't forget about the food," Sherlock's mother reminded them. Then she leaned over to give John a quick squeeze of his shoulder and a peck on the cheek. "And take heart, John. You'll be out of this place soon."

"I know," John said. "Off to rehab." He smiled at her, but it wasn't very believable.

Sherlock understood; he felt the same way. He didn't know what he was going to do with himself for a month or more without John. Visiting hours were not going to be enough. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because his mother tried to hug him next. He tolerated it but didn't hug her back. She rubbed his hair with one hand like she had when he was a little boy and said, "You'll survive, Sherlock. You always do."

His father looked sad, now, too, and Sherlock didn't think he could endure a father/son embrace, so he herded them both toward the door. Mycroft was still waiting outside the room, of course. _Maybe._ It would be horribly humiliating, but worth it.

"I—I just need to go talk to my brother for a moment," he told John. John nodded; he was lowering the bed so he could sleep and Sherlock didn't think he was really paying attention. "I'll be right back." He stepped out into the hall behind his parents and pulled the door shut after him.

Mycroft had already started down the hall. Sherlock waved his parents on and called his brother back. It pained him to ask, but he had to do it. "John's going to rehab, soon. Could you, maybe."

"I've already ensured that he has a place in the finest centre in the greater London area. Which you would know if you ever bothered to look at your phone."

"Yes, but-" He knew where John would be going, but he thought his doctors had referred him there; of course Mycroft had been behind it. He was already indebted and he hadn't even asked for help yet. "I need to be able to stay with him."

"Sherlock. There are limits, even to what I can do."

Sherlock tipped his chin up and did his best to look down his nose at his brother, despite the disadvantage of height. Mycroft's eyes slid to the left for a split second before he sighed. "I've already taken quite a few liberties to bypass the waiting list and usual channels. Even if I could call in more favours, it might very well backfire. The resentment it could cause—is that really the environment you want to create for John's recovery?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to say he didn't care, he would be with John under any circumstances, but then he stopped. John might care. They'd been breaking the rules here at hospital for weeks, and some of the staff had certainly commented; it quite possibly could be worse at the rehabilitation centre, which would be a much smaller, more intimate environment.

Mycroft took advantage of his hesitation. "I'm very sorry, Sherlock. You're going to have your hands full back at Baker Street, though, getting the flat ready for John. If there is anything else you need from me, I'm more than willing."

Sherlock shook his head. "Mummy and Dad are giving me all their money. A cure for paralysis would be nice, though."

"I'll see what I can do." He tapped his umbrella twice against the floor. "There are a number of promising trials. I'll forward you all the information and you can evaluate them for yourself."

"No."

"No?"

Sherlock looked up at his brother for a moment, then looked away. "Is there an actual, fool-proof cure for paralysis of which you are aware?"

"No, of course not."

"Then, please, look into every possible experimental treatment you can find. Figure out which might be best for John. Consult with all the experts. Just don't ask me to be involved. I can't—I can't think about that kind of thing right now."

Mycroft frowned. "I would've thought this would be right up your alley, Sherlock. Throwing yourself into a topic, researching every possible angle."

He shook his head again. "Not this time. Not this."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "I'll get John's records and look at the research and then let _John_ know what I've found. He might have an interest in the topic, after all."

Sherlock didn't bother glaring. Either Mycroft understood that this was too emotional for him to deal with or he didn't. "I need to get back to John. Thank you for offering to help."

He turned on his heel and left Mycroft standing in the hall, not caring if his brother interpreted his thank you as sincere or sarcastic, and not really sure how he meant it himself.

John was still awake, lying flat on his back with his eyes open, hands tucked behind his head. He flicked his gaze over to Sherlock and said, "Did your parents just play us?"

Sherlock tipped his head to one side. _Damn_. _They never intended to have us move in with them. __They just wanted to give us the money._ "Well, they played you, that's seems certain."

John raised his eyebrows. "Don't give me that. You didn't know what they were up to any more than I did."

"No, but I have no qualms about accepting money from them. Like I said, half of everything they have will be mine someday, anyway, and if I use more of it now, it just means less for Mycroft later. You're the one who won't take handouts."

John huffed and then chuckled. "I can't believe they can trick you so easily."

"They're my parents, John. Of course they can trick me. Nothing they do or say ever makes any logical sense; how could I possibly predict them?" He grunted and flopped down into the vinyl chair. "Family. Ugh."

John seemed to find that amusing, too. He snorted and said, "Well, yours is a good bit better than mine."

"Oh, I don't know. Harry sent flowers when you first got here, remember?"

"Yeah. From Tesco."

Sherlock shrugged. Maybe his dysfunctional family was better, maybe not. They certainly had more resources, though they seemed to think they could pick and choose how to help. He curled into his chair and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep, John. You just went head-to-head with the whole Holmes clan. It may take you a while to recuperate."

John laughed but was asleep within minutes. Sherlock was not.


	7. Chapter 7

At first the rehab centre reminded Sherlock of a nursing home, with its wide, beige halls and communal dining and activity areas, except it smelled significantly better and most of the people there weren't very old. John had a private room, more than twice the size of the hospital room he'd been in. It looked like a standard hotel room, if you ignored the grab bars and the shower with a bench in it. There was a big television and a microwave and a tiny refrigerator and a double bed. If only Sherlock could have stayed there with him, it would be almost like being on an extended vacation together. But he wasn't staying; he'd had to leave John there alone and take a cab back home by himself.

Even after all the weeks at hospital, stepping into Baker Street felt normal, at first. Mrs Hudson's door was ajar; Sherlock tried to be silent, not wanting to have to interact with her just yet. Maybe later she could bring him something for dinner. He climbed the stairs slowly, not his usual bouncing pace, dread growing with each step as he realised just how difficult it was going to be to get John a way to access the flat. _Seventeen steps. How the hell are we going to—_

The door to their flat was also open. He sighed. Mrs Hudson meant well, he knew, but couldn't he have at least a few minutes to himself? He scuffed his feet on the last step so she would know he was home and then pushed the door open all the way.

Mrs Hudson was in the sitting room, but she wasn't alone. She stood hovering by the desk, Mycroft sat as if he thought he belonged in Sherlock's chair, and Lestrade emerged from the kitchen, the only one with the decency to look as if he knew he shouldn't be there.

Sherlock dropped his duffel bag on the floor and shrugged out of his coat. He thrust his chin at his brother and Mycroft stood, surprisingly, buttoning his suit jacket as he vacated Sherlock's chair.

Sherlock tipped his head at the three people in his flat and said, "What the hell is this? An intervention? Drugs bust? Go ahead, search the flat. You won't find anything. Might try helping me straighten up a bit while you're at it. I've got six weeks to get the floor mostly clear." _Not to mention all the renovation. We'll have to start immediately. _ He flopped down into his chair, anxious, exhausted and aching for his own bed after the last few weeks.

Mycroft leaned against the arm of John's chair. If he tried to sit in it Sherlock was going to punch him. "We've already searched, Sherlock."

"All right, then. Why are you here? Because I know you couldn't have found anything." _Unless there was something I forgot._ But no, John had gotten rid of his stash tucked into the lamp base several years ago and Sherlock hadn't felt the urge to replace it. He didn't even have any cigarettes in the flat at the moment. God, that sounded good. Maybe Lestrade would feel sorry for him and let him bum one or two.

Instead Lestrade looked at Mycroft and then reached inside his jacket and pulled out a large zippered plastic bag full of pill bottles.

Sherlock's stomach knotted even more painfully than it had been before, which was frankly quite impressive. He didn't let it show. "Those are not in any way illegal or controlled substances," he said. "Why were you poking through my nightstand? Did you need some lubricant?"

"Sherlock." That was Mrs. Hudson. He was quite certain her only role here today was to speak his name in a disapproving tone.

"Five bottles in your bedside table, brother dear." Mycroft twisted his umbrella against the floor and did not look at Sherlock as he spoke. "Five prescriptions, all in your name, all filled within the last four years, all virtually untouched. You will choose one and begin taking it today.".

"Why on earth would I do that? Go away, all of you." Sherlock slouched farther into his chair; maybe he could wiggle deep enough that it would swallow him up and he wouldn't have to be here. This was John's fault. He had told them about this. They would never come into the flat looking for _legal_ drugs on their own.

"We're not leaving until you agree to take one of these." Lestrade rattled the plastic bag; the pill bottles clanked dully against each other.

"Why? I'm not depressed."

"Sherlock, you haven't been yourself since John was hurt. You've been sleeping more than you ever have in your life, and showing no interest in—in anything, really." Lestrade looked over at Mycroft, who cleared his throat and proceeded to list everything he thought Sherlock had been doing wrong.

"You stopped responding to texts ages ago. You allowed your phone and laptop batteries to die. You only shower when John tells you to, and you don't seem to care what you're wearing or what the state of your hair is. You should've been bored out of your mind in that hospital, climbing the walls, but instead you just curled up and slept most of the time. When I was there with Mummy and Daddy you didn't even bother to insult me, or deduce that I'd given up any attempt at dieting while Mummy was staying at my house."

"So I've had other things on my mind. That doesn't mean I'm depressed. I'm just more concerned about John than anything else."

"Last week you turned down the chance to research medical trials, Sherlock, even though that could directly benefit John."

"That's because it's just too—too much."

"Yeah, we understand, really, we do," Lestrade said. He took a step closer to Sherlock, then seemed to think better of it and leaned against the fireplace mantel. "A lot of things are probably too much right now, Sherlock. That's why you need to take the meds."

"No, but—" Sherlock shook his head. Everything they were saying was true, but their conclusion was faulty. "This is normal. I've been acting _normal_ and you're trying to drug me out of it."

Mycroft sighed. "It may very well be normal, Sherlock. But that doesn't mean it's healthy, or that it doesn't need to be treated."

"I can't believe you're here trying to _make _me take drugs." He tried to sound disdainful instead of whiny but he wasn't sure he managed.

Lestrade was somehow standing behind Sherlock's chair now, though Sherlock hadn't seen him move. God, he was tired. When would they all just _leave_?

"Sherlock, there's no shame in accepting a little help when you need it," Lestrade said. "I've taken anti-depressants before."

_Of course you have. When your wife left you, when she came back, when she left again._ The fact that he didn't say any of this aloud made Sherlock unreasonably proud of his own self-control. He felt Lestrade's hand on his shoulder and tensed but did his best not to squirm away. His own fault, for letting Lestrade comfort him in hospital.

"Sherlock." Now it was Mycroft's turn again, apparently. "You clearly have recognized the issue in the past. You have five prescriptions here. You've been to the doctor five times for this—this problem."

"Three times." Sherlock's hands were pressed against his mouth and he spoke into them, but he knew they could hear. "John wrote two of the scripts for me."

"Very well. Three times, and John was concerned enough to help."

"John is the only reason I would ever even consider going to the doctor, you idiot. Why would I care what I felt like if he weren't around?"

He didn't expect Mycroft's look of smugness at those words.

"Exactly. Which is why you will resume taking the medication now, so it may reach its full effectiveness by the time John returns home. Do you understand me?"

Sherlock sighed and let his hands slide away from his face. "I can't take them, Mycroft. I'm not just being difficult here, believe me. I can't function when I take them. I've tried. They make me so sleepy and I can't think at all and it's worse—it's worse than the depression." There. He said it. He'd admitted not only did he feel emotions just like other people, but that he sometimes couldn't control them on his own. _Now maybe they'll leave._

"Take half a dose." Lestrade was next to Mycroft now, leaning back against the other arm of John's chair, his arms crossed and his upper body leaning toward Sherlock. "And take it at night, before you go to bed. You'll get a good night's sleep and by morning the sleepiness will have mostly worn off."

"Half a dose? I'm a fully-grown man. What good will half a dose do?"

"You're a fully-grown man who happens to be very sensitive to various legal and illegal substances and their side effects." Mycroft copied Lestrade's cross-armed pose. "A half-dose could very well be enough to keep you stabilised."

"Stabilised."

"Stabilised. You could even start with a quarter-dose and see how it affects you."

"I do not need to be stabilised, Mycroft." He let his head fall back against his chair in exasperation.

"Sherlock, dear." Mrs. Hudson stopped her nervous pacing and perched on the arm of Sherlock's chair. Since when was he the only one inclined to sit properly on the furniture? "You're going to be alone in this flat for a while. We'll all be around to help you out, but you know how you get when John's not around. And even when he is here, sometimes—you know how you get. What good are you to him if you're curled up on the sofa crying for a month?"

"I do not cry on the sofa, Mrs. Hudson." He gripped the arms of his chair but she didn't back off from her position, just patted his hand.

"I know, I know. There are never any actual tears. But you do have dark days, don't you? Dark weeks? John can't take care of you right now. Maybe later, he will again, but right now you're going to have to take care of him for a bit."

"Mrs. Hudson." Sherlock closed his eyes and hissed her name, because really, what else was there to do? She wasn't wrong and he'd already decided to listen to them. He just needed to argue a bit more before he let them know.

He waved a hand at the bag of prescription bottles. "Half of those have expired, anyway."

Lestrade emptied the bag onto the end table. He tilted each bottle, reading the labels, and then handed three of them to Sherlock. "These are still good."

Sherlock glanced at them, then let one fall to the floor. "That upset my stomach." He popped the top on the second bottle. "These are capsules. I can't cut them in half." The third bottle was the script John had written for him about ten months ago. He hadn't tried it, because soon after John had picked it up from the chemist they'd gotten an interesting new case and he felt better. He rolled the bottle between his hands, thinking. Mycroft, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson all watched him. He exhaled slowly. "I will try this tonight. If I can't think straight in the morning . . . ."

"You will try them for a week, Sherlock." Mycroft straightened up, as if the matter were settled. "And if you don't, I'll tell John. Now, will we need a blood sample each morning or will you cooperate?"


	8. Chapter 8

After everyone agreed that Sherlock needed to be drugged in order to function properly, Mrs Hudson insisted on making tea and distributing biscuits, and then she asked how John was doing, and then Lestrade started telling her and Mycroft about some case involving three cats and a parakeet and they all just sat there talking and socialising until Sherlock was ready to go get John's gun out of its hiding place. Just as a threat; he wouldn't actually shoot anyone.

He stood abruptly and announced, "I'm having a bath now," and strode out of the sitting room, not bothering to wait to see if any of them took the hint to leave.

After weeks of quick stolen showers in John's hospital room, soaking in the tub felt like a bit of a splurge. He sat until the water cooled and then climbed out, found some pyjamas and a clean dressing gown. He needed a shave—Mycroft and the others were right about that, he really hadn't been paying much attention to personal grooming—but his razor was still in the bag he'd left by the front door.

Everyone was gone from the sitting room, thankfully, and Mrs Hudson had cleared up all the tea cups and saucers, but someone had left the door to the flat partway open. When he bent to pick up his duffel bag he heard someone out on the landing. Mycroft, on his phone, pacing back and forth. Sherlock opened the door all the way, glared at him, and then slammed it shut and locked it, knowing that wouldn't keep Mycroft out for long.

Mycroft continued talking, nothing of substance that Sherlock could hear: no surprise there. Finally Sherlock heard him turn and head down the stairs; the door to the street opened and closed and Sherlock relaxed, at least on the surface. It still didn't feel quite right being here without John.

He rummaged through his bag, looking for his shaving kit, pulling out clothes and trying to figure out if they all were due for a wash. Probably. He found his razor, shoved everything else back into the bag to carry it to the hamper—_I'm going to have to do my own laundry for _weeks_, ugh—_and heard the door downstairs open again. Oh, lord, Mycroft was back, no longer on the phone, walking up the stairs carrying something this time. What had Sherlock done to deserve this? If he had to be here without John, couldn't he at least be _alone_?

Mycroft didn't even bother knocking; apparently he had a key. He came through the door carrying his briefcase and a small, bespoke travel bag that put Sherlock's sad canvas duffel to shame. Sherlock frowned and resolved to buy some expensive luggage for himself and John. _And maybe don't tell John how much it cost._

Mycroft took one look at Sherlock and sneered. "I didn't realize there was a pyjama shortage. I guess I know what to get you for Christmas."

"Shut up," Sherlock said, letting the disquiet he was feeling slip out as anger in his voice. "There's nothing wrong with these."

"Mm. Perhaps you've just grown taller in the last month or so."

Sherlock glanced down at his exposed ankles. Yeah, so he was wearing John's pyjamas. They were soft and comfortable and Mycroft could piss off. He let his dressing gown fall open and tugged the pyjama bottoms down enough to cover his ankles, exposing the bones of his hips and a few curls of dark hair. "Better?" he asked.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Mummy's right. You have lost too much weight."

"Why are you still here and why do you have a suitcase with you?"

Mycroft set his briefcase and bag on the coffee table and dropped heavily onto the sofa. "Mummy and Daddy have been staying with me for almost three weeks, Sherlock. This was the only way I could get them to leave."

"What?" Sherlock knew what his brother was implying but hoped he was somehow mistaken.

Mycroft smiled up at him, insincere and flat. "Don't worry. I brought my own pyjamas."

Sherlock pulled his trousers back up and tightened his dressing gown around him. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't need a babysitter. And Mrs. Hudson is right downstairs."

Mycroft sighed and rubbed at his temple. "I know. But I promised Mummy and Daddy. Unless you'd rather they stay here with you?"

Sherlock groaned. "They'd make me _talk_ to them all evening."

"I won't speak to you at all if you'll order us something to eat."

Sherlock huffed and made a comment about Mycroft's diet, because apparently not doing so was a sign of depression, though he knew from his brother's lack of a comeback that he only wanted food because he'd also promised their parents that he would get Sherlock to eat. His family was so annoying. He considered suggesting Mycroft leave and just tell their parents he had stayed, but they both knew that they were rubbish at lying to their parents. Mummy especially. She always knew.

Mycroft was as good as his word; he barely spoke all evening, just ate most of the dinner that Sherlock ordered and spent the time reading through stacks of papers he pulled from his briefcase. Sherlock was surprised he hadn't brought an assistant with him.

Eventually, Mycroft packed up his file folders and went off to the loo to get changed. Sherlock picked up the remains of their takeaway, dropping the silverware and cups into the kitchen sink. It seemed a waste of water to wash such a few items when there would just be more dirty dishes after breakfast in the morning. Besides, Mrs Hudson would probably wash everything for him tomorrow afternoon when he went to see John.

Mycroft reappeared in the sitting room, wearing a dressing gown and silk pyjamas that covered his ankles completely. Plus he still had socks on beneath his slippers. Sherlock shook his head and considered where to put his brother. The bed up in John's old room had been covered in papers, discarded clothes and broken electronics for years.

"The sofa's fine, Sherlock. I can fall sleep anywhere."

"Mm, quite a talent. Are you going to bed now?" It was not quite gone ten o'clock, though Sherlock himself had been exhausted for so long it seemed later.

"Yes. But first I'm going to make sure you take your half-pill," he said. He tossed the bottle of anti-depressants at Sherlock. Sherlock caught it one-handed and opened the bottle, tipped out a small brown pill into his hand. Mycroft produced a pill-cutter from the pocket of his dressing gown. "A full dose is two pills, but I think you should start with a quarter dose."

"Seriously? You carry a pill-cutter in your pocket? That explains a lot." He popped the full tablet into his mouth, swallowing it dry. "I think I can handle one pill."

Mycroft shrugged and set the plastic cutter down on the coffee table. "You're the one who complained it made you tired and stupid."

"I don't think I said stupid."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows, then lowered himself onto the sofa. He toed off his slippers, lining them up neatly on the floor, but left his socks on. Sherlock didn't understand how anyone could sleep while wearing socks.

"If you could please remove yourself from my bedroom, I would appreciate it," Mycroft said. "I need to be at the office for a six a.m. conference call. The Russians are so inconsiderate."

"Fine. I'll go shut myself away in my room so as not to disturb your beauty rest."

"Excellent. Mummy will be so proud that you've finally learnt how to be a good host. Good night, little brother."

Sherlock huffed and thought about again insisting that Mycroft did not need to stay, but instead of saying anything he just grabbed his violin case from where it stood in the corner, dislodging a layer of dust.

"Lullabies, please," Mycroft said. "Nothing atonal."

Sherlock growled and stalked off toward his bedroom. He slammed his door shut and then surprised himself by doing as Mycroft requested: lullabies, played softly, just loud enough to reach the edge of his brother's hearing.

He played for almost an hour before his fingers started making stupid mistakes. So apparently half a dose was still enough to have side effects. That was okay, he thought, putting away the violin. Maybe he'd be able to get some real sleep instead of just the broken, unsatisfying rest he'd had for so long in hospital.

He hung his dressing gown on the hook on the back of the door. _John's going to need a lower hook._ He squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn't the time to start a list of flat modifications; he could do that in the morning, since visiting hours at rehab didn't start until two. He sighed and pulled back the duvet on the bed, untouched since the last time John had made the bed, over a month ago. The empty sheets yawned before him and a surge of panic gripped his intestines.

He sat carefully on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe slowly through his nose. _It's fine. __It will be fine_.

Maybe the drugs he'd just taken would help, and this panic he felt would subside. Though he knew anti-depressants didn't work that way. They weren't going to magically calm him down; instead they would build up in his body over weeks, and then maybe subtly alter his brain chemistry in the proper direction. _Maybe_. If they worked. _If I keep taking them._

Or maybe the panic he was feeling was caused by the drug—another side effect, a new one, since he hadn't taken this particular formulation before. He closed his eyes and recalled the list of common side effects that had come with the prescription. Unlikely. Unless he was allergic, and that was causing the nauseous flutters in his stomach.

No. He knew what the problem was. The bed. Usually John was in it already by the time Sherlock was ready to sleep. Sure, there were times in the past few years when he'd slept alone at night, when John was away, but not many. And that had been tolerable, because he'd known John was just off at a conference, or gone to work on some boring aspect of a case that Sherlock hadn't wanted to bother himself with. And he'd known John would be back in a day or two, smiling and laughing or possibly bitching and complaining, but either way, walking and whole and not hurt, and now John was never going to be _not hurt _again, and, God, Sherlock couldn't stand it.

There was no way he could lie down in this bed and sleep, not tonight, not without John. The drugs were making him tired but not that tired. He could never be tired enough to lie in this bed alone and not think about John.

He stood up and pulled the sheets and duvet back up, remaking the bed as if he'd never touched it. He didn't need to sleep. He was tired but not unbearably so.

He put his dressing gown back on and wandered out through the kitchen and into the sitting room. Mycroft was asleep. He didn't know why he was surprised; his brother had always been prone to giving into his bodily urges much too easily. Sherlock had forgotten about the snoring, though he had to admit that it wasn't as loud as it had been twenty years ago, when his brother had actually been fat.

He didn't want to wake Mycroft up; as much as he liked to annoy him, he didn't really bear him any ill will, and anyway if they were both awake they might have to talk or something. So nothing loud, and nothing that required the lights be on. No experiments, not that he felt much like experimenting anyway.

He sat down in his chair, instead. His whole body felt fuzzy and thick, and walking had made him—not dizzy, exactly, but a bit off balance. Yes, this was what he remembered from the last time John had convinced him to medicate himself legally. He hoped it would wear off by morning, but apparently he was going to have to give in and sleep before then. It wouldn't be the first time he'd slept in this chair, although usually after a couple of hours John would come by and drag him to bed. John, hair spiky from sleep, pillow creases on his cheek, detouring on his way to the loo so he could grab Sherlock by the arm and haul him down the hall, ranting about how normal people liked to fall asleep together in bed. _I promise I will go to bed when you do if you will just come home, John. _Sherlock rubbed at his eyes and wondered if he was going to start hallucinating.

Across the room, Mycroft shifted on the sofa. A very stupid idea bloomed in Sherlock's mind. Very stupid. He was clearly under the influence, making horrible decisions.

The sofa was a little less than six feet long, if you didn't count the arms. Mycroft was more than six feet tall, but on his side, with his legs drawn up a bit, there was at least half a cushion free. Plus more space on the middle cushion, behind his knees. Because he really wasn't fat at all, and Sherlock was thin and quite flexible for someone who was very close to forty. Which meant . . . .

He grabbed the blanket off the back of John's chair, pulled his dressing gown in close and stepped gingerly up onto the end of the sofa. Mycroft squirmed a bit when Sherlock eased himself into the empty space behind his legs and feet, but the snoring didn't stop or change pace and Sherlock was fairly certain that his brother was not faking it and in fact did not awaken. And he really didn't care if he did, as long as he didn't open his mouth and say anything about it. Which he wouldn't. If Mycroft was interested in teasing him, Sherlock had certainly been giving him plenty of ammunition lately, but his brother seemed to know that some things were off-limits even in their eternal game of one-upmanship. Teasing Sherlock about wearing John's pyjamas: acceptable. Teasing Sherlock about having become the type of man who couldn't sleep without the presence of another person to comfort him: no.

He tucked himself around Mycroft as best he could, trying not to touch him but knowing he'd end up doing so as he slept. When he was settled in as comfortable position as he could manage, he spread one end of the blanket over his legs and then hugged the rest of it to his chest. It smelled like John's shampoo, and Sherlock hoped if he kept hold of it in his sleep, it would keep him from reaching out and grabbing his brother. Especially since the closest parts of Mycroft's body were his doubtless sweaty, sock-clad feet.

Mycroft's snoring was steady and soothing, sort of, and the sofa cushions were welcomingly familiar and Sherlock leaned back against them and let the unavoidable pull of sleep settle over him. Only six to eight more weeks and then John would be home.


	9. Chapter 9

_Note: Fair Warning: This chapter tried to kill me. __Enjoy._

* * *

><p>Sherlock slept for nearly ten hours; Mycroft was gone when he woke up, of course. But he'd left his overnight bag and when Mrs Hudson heard Sherlock moving around she shouted up that there was a package waiting at the bottom of the stairs. <em>Single-size Deluxe Plush Airbed<em>, read the side of the box. Sherlock hefted the box upstairs and tried not to examine his feelings about having his brother stay another night. At least they wouldn't have to touch each other again.

He had three voicemails, all from his parents, all about contractors his father knew who him owed favours or were old friends of the family. One of them would be here tomorrow to look at the flat and Mum and Dad expected Sherlock to call the others to set up times to meet. That was exactly the kind of work Sherlock did not do. Just the thought of talking to a bunch of construction workers about appointment times and estimates and permits and schematics made Sherlock's skin crawl, and he felt a tiny, irrational stab of anger at John for not being here to do this for him. Which in turn made him feel horrible enough that he called all the numbers his father had left for him. He didn't get through to anyone, of course—who answers their phone these days?—but he left messages and made sure to mention that they could return his call via text, which would certainly make this whole process simpler.

Someone, Mrs Hudson, presumably, although it could have been Mycroft, had stocked the kitchen with perishables, so Sherlock had a banana with his coffee and then decided to pack a few items to bring to John. A half-full box of his favourite tea; it might not be at its freshest at this point, but John would still drink it. There were three chocolate bars hidden in the back of the veg crisper; Sherlock ate one and tossed the other two into the box with the tea and then moved into the bedroom, which wasn't quite as intimidating now that he knew he didn't have to try to fall asleep in there.

John had pyjamas and underwear and a couple changes of clothes already, but Sherlock packed almost everything else: chinos and jogging bottoms, jumpers and button downs and t-shirts. The idea of shoes threw him for a moment; of course John had to wear shoes, even if he wasn't walking in them, and it probably wasn't good to wear the same pair all the time. After a bit of rummaging he found an old pair of trainers John could alternate with the ones he already had with him, then added some loafers that would match the chinos he'd packed.

There was still some room in the suitcase, so he threw in a couple of books, then some magazines and mail that had piled up at the flat. How much free time was John going to have? He grabbed a few DVDs just in case there wasn't anything good to stream online. Of course John also needed his own pillow, and one of the blankets from their bed, to make rehab feel like home. _Do I want it to feel like home?_ Of course not, but he did want John to be comfortable. Okay, now there were two suitcases. He might have over-packed.

Just one more thing—he added a picture of the two of them that John had framed. It had been taken when they'd solved that case in Paris so fast and spent the rest of the week on holiday. Multiple people had asked them if they were on their honeymoon and he and John had laughed at the idea of ever getting married. It hadn't been that many years ago—why did they both look so impossibly young?

Just before he was about to leave, Lestrade texted him. He needed help with a case. This was exactly why Sherlock had let his phone stay dead for so long: to prevent idiots from contacting him. But now he needed to answer or Lestrade would tell Mycroft and Mrs Hudson and they'd all worry and make him talk to them again. He glanced over the details in the link Lestrade sent and sighed, hoping that Lestrade was just trying to get Sherlock back in the game, that he wasn't really so dense. _Check with the daughter's chiropractor,_ he texted back, and then added, _Going to see John now. __Won't be responding again until tonight so you'll need to use your own brain. __Good luck. –SH_

The receptionist at the rehab centre remembered him from yesterday and waved him on in, but when he got to John's room it was empty. He took off his coat and then unpacked some of the things he'd brought; John's clothes went into the low chest of drawers and he piled the books and magazines on the bedside table and then sat the not-a-honeymoon photo on top of them. After that he didn't really have anything else to do, and he knew that John would probably be wrapping up his physiotherapy session soon, so he shrugged out of his suit jacket and lay down on top of the bed to wait. There was a table with two chairs and also a loveseat in the room, but the bed looked soft and inviting and even though he wasn't as tired as he'd feared he'd be after starting the anti-depressants, he was still a little sleepier than usual. Which was pretty nonsensical, if you thought about it; everyone complained that he was depressed because he was sleeping too much so now he was taking an anti-depressant that would probably make him sleep too much.

He closed his eyes and opened them just a moment later at the sound of the door opening. _Or maybe I was asleep. _John came in, wearing a t-shirt and jogging bottoms and a rather impressive coating of sweat. There was a fit young physiotherapist—_male, 29 years old, grew up in London, not gay, thank God_—right behind him, but John was pushing himself in the wheelchair, despite the strain in his shoulders that said it was not an easy task.

Sherlock sat up as they entered and John's eyes softened some when he saw him but then he said, voice a bit gaspy. "Move over. I need to lie down."

"Are you all right?" Sherlock slid to his feet, standing on the far side of the bed from John. The physio didn't seem very concerned, but Sherlock had rarely seen John so exhausted; he looked almost worse than he had in hospital when he'd first woken up.

"No," John answered. "I'm pretty sure I'm dead."

The physio laughed, not noticing the bitterness beneath John's half-joking tone. "You'll be fine. You're in pretty good shape to start with. This is going to be a piece of cake for you."

Sherlock was very glad he was not on the other side of John's glare, but the physio just laughed again, and then looked over at Sherlock. "I'm Ray," he said.

"Sherlock," he said, and turned his attention back to John.

"I forgot how horrible physio is," John groaned, and wrapped his arms around his torso, then groaned louder.

Sherlock looked past John to Ray. "How much is he exaggerating?"

"Oh, I'm sure it's uncomfortable, and he'll be sore tomorrow, but he'll survive."

"Nope. Already dead," John said. "This is Hell."

"Oh, it gets worse," Ray said cheerfully, still oblivious. John wasn't just in pain; he was angry about it, even if might not have been obvious to anyone but Sherlock. It wasn't just the edge to his tone, but the way all of his movements were shortened and brisk, overly precise.

"You need some help up onto bed?" Ray asked.

John rubbed his hand across his face and nodded and Sherlock stood across from them and watched while Ray helped him out of the chair. And it was helping, now, not just lifting him, which was already a big step up from where he'd been just a few days ago. He was still using the same big, clunky wheelchair that he'd had in hospital; no one had mentioned when he'd be fitted for a new one.

John stretched out on his back and shifted around a bit, clearly unable to get comfortable.

"I can get you some ibuprofen, if you want," Ray offered.

"Ta, yeah, that'd be great."

"Maybe something stronger?" Sherlock suggested.

"No," John said, and Ray just shrugged and went to get the ibuprofen out of the cabinet in the bathroom.

"John, if it hurts that much . . . ."

"It's just muscle strain, Sherlock. Ibuprofen's the best thing for it anyway. I've been off the morphine for over a week. I don't need to go back."

"There are other drugs besides morphine."

"The ibuprofen's enough."

Sherlock sighed and sat down on the bed, careful not to jostle the mattress. "I'm going to repeat my previous assertion that you can be a horrible doctor at times."

"I'm an excellent doctor. It's the patient part I'm still not so good at."

"True." Sherlock put his hand out, palm up, next to John and John accepted the invitation, resting his hand atop Sherlock's. _At least he's not angry with me._ He let his fingers curl up through John's.

John squeezed his hand briefly. "Sorry about all the sweat. And I know I smell pretty terrible, too."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "I wasn't going to mention that."

John smiled, just the ghost of a tired grin. "I'll shower in a little bit. I want to cool down first."

Ray came back with a glass of water and three pink pills and Sherlock bit his lip to stop himself from suggesting he add a fourth, since John clearly did not value his offers of medical advice. He reluctantly let go of his hand so John could sit up and take the medicine.

"Tomorrow morning we'll do some different exercises, give your abs a chance to recover."

John grunted and handed the water glass back to Ray, who wished John a good afternoon and told Sherlock how nice it had been to meet him, even though they hadn't exchanged more than two sentences. When he was gone, Sherlock shook his head in disgust. "Are you going to have to put up with that level of cheerfulness every day?"

"That's what physios are like, Sherlock. It's their job, to be sunny and encouraging." He turned his head to look at Sherlock and narrowed his eyes. "They think then you won't notice as they slowly torture you to death."

"John, I know you like to think of yourself as stoic and manly, but if it's really that bad—"

John cut him off. "I'm just tired." He collapsed back onto the pillow with a faint wheeze.

Sherlock slid down on the bed and rolled onto his side to face John. "Do want to nap?" He could probably fall asleep again himself. He didn't know what else he'd expected to do here with John anyway; visiting hours lasted until eight and it wasn't even three o'clock yet.

"Yeah, I think so. There's tea and then supper over in the dining room later, but for now I'm just . . . done."

Sherlock slid his arm over John's chest and John grimaced and pushed him away. "Did I not mention that everything really hurts?" He paused, eyes squeezed shut, and then added, "Well, everything I can feel, anyway."

Sherlock flinched. He could feel the weight of John's words pressing down and threatening to suffocate them both; he had to do something to counteract them. _I need to touch him without hurting him._ He reached up and traced his index finger over the line of John's jaw. "Does that hurt?"

"No." John tipped his head away at the contact, the opposite of what Sherlock had expected. "Just—I don't really want you to try to cheer me up right now, okay?"

Sherlock didn't know how to respond, though he understood John's sentiment. After a moment of recalculation, he settled both palms against John's upper arm. They often slept like that; John didn't like to be crowded but Sherlock didn't like to sleep without touching him. "Is this all right?"

John looked at Sherlock again and nodded rapidly, swallowing several times. Despite the tired lines around his eyes he looked very young and fragile in that moment, and Sherlock wanted nothing more than to pull him into his arms and hold him as tightly as he could. Instead he spread his fingers gently along the sweat-damp hem of John's t-shirt sleeve and said, "I missed you last night."

"I missed you, too. I—" John worked his jaw as if he had something else to say and after a moment came out with, "I'm sorry."

"What? No. Don't be ridiculous, John. You have nothing to apologize for."

"I just—"

John didn't say anything else, and Sherlock wasn't sure what to do. _Does he want to talk? __Am I supposed to encourage him to talk?_ Clearly John was not just reacting to the pain of physiotherapy. Maybe he would start talking when he was ready. Sherlock didn't know; they didn't do this sort of thing. They didn't need to. Their relationship had always been easy, they'd been at ease in each other's company almost immediately, and on the few occasions when one of them needed emotional comfort, they usually managed to provide it for each other without having to discuss it. An embrace or even just a touch and maybe an unexpected cup of tea or walk through the park together was generally enough to get them through. Sherlock realised that he himself had gone almost his entire life without ever having to deal with any sort of large-scale emotional upheaval, unless you counted the psychological stress of getting off cocaine. Which had been totally different, and he certainly knew better than to compare that to what John was going through right now.

He raised himself up on an elbow so he could better see John's face and John shut his eyes against Sherlock's evaluation. "Stop looking at me."

"What?"

John turned his head away again, as if he could escape Sherlock's gaze. "You're looking at me and _analysing_, I know you are. Stop it."

"Sorry." Sherlock laid his head back down on the pillow next to John and closed his own eyes, breathing in the scent of John's sweat chased by just the faintest lingering remnant of deodorant. John was quiet for long enough that Sherlock felt himself starting to twitch toward sleep.

"I don't . . . . I can't . . . ." He reached for Sherlock's fingers with one hand. "Sherlock, I don't want to do this."

"It's just physio, John." _That's not what he means and you know it. _"You've done it before. You'll get through it."

"No, I won't!" John's voice rose toward yelling. "That's just it, see? I'm not going to get through it. I'm going to stay like this. I'm not going to get better. I mean, the muscle aches will go away, but—"

Sherlock fought to keep himself under control. While he might not have known the exact protocol for calming your emotionally fragile, physically compromised lover, he was fairly certain it did not involve bursting into tears and needing to be comforted yourself. He pulled John into an embrace, one arm thrown across his chest and the other wedged beneath his neck, no longer caring what it did to John's over-worked muscles. John didn't object; he gripped Sherlock's arm where it crossed his torso, hands trembling. Sherlock could feel the dig of his nails even through his shirtsleeve.

He didn't move; he just stayed where he was, letting John cling to him, and tried to breathe slowly and evenly, to be a steadying presence and help both of them calm. After a few minutes John's grip on him loosened a little. Beneath Sherlock's arm, John's chest rose and fell at a more normal pace as he began to talk.

"I'm sorry. I guess it's just hit home a little harder today." John's left hand trailed down Sherlock's arm, found the bare skin of his wrist to caress as he spoke. "I had two sessions of physio. Two hours total. Sherlock, I have never in my life worked as hard physically as I did for those two hours. Not in basic training, not in Afghanistan, not in physio for my shoulder. And in between I had an hour of OT. Which wasn't as intense, but . . . I couldn't do most the things they wanted me to do. I know Ray said I'm in good shape but I'm really not. I can't lift myself in and out of the chair. It took me ten minutes just to put on my shoes and socks, and forget about putting my trousers on by myself. Sherlock." He made a hiccupping noise and Sherlock felt fingers tightening on his wrist again.

John may have been very close to tears, but Sherlock felt better because he knew what to say now. He shifted his arm so he could grab John's fingers and hold them still. "Are you even listening to yourself? Because all of the things you just said—they are going to get better. It's just a matter of time and re-training your muscles. That's what you're here for, to learn how to do those things."

"I don't want to have to learn them! I already learned how to dress myself when I was two! Jesus Christ, Sherlock, are _you_ listening to yourself? Why should I have to learn everything again?"

_Because you're too quick to follow me anywhere, of course. __My fault, my fault, it's my fault._ He took a deep breath and said, "I know it's not fair. But if anyone can do it, you can. Pound for pound, you're one of the strongest people I know. Physically and mentally."

"I don't feel like it."

"I know. But you are, and it will get better, I promise."

"How can you know that, Sherlock?"

"Because I know you and if nothing else, you're too stubborn to let this beat you." Sherlock tightened his grip around John, feeling him gasp as his sore muscles were abused again. _I know I'm hurting you but I honestly believe you can handle it, and anyway I need to hold you right now._ He tipped his head down, pressed his forehead against John's ribs—at least they had healed well—and John pulled his right arm out from underneath Sherlock to return the embrace.

Sherlock was actually very wide awake, now, but after a few moments John said, his voice more steady, if a bit flatter than usual. "You seem tired. Didn't you sleep last night?"

"I slept." He left it at that. No need to mention Mycroft and the sofa, or the reason why he was still sleepy. He wiggled a bit and John relaxed the arm around his shoulder and Sherlock rolled up onto his side so he wasn't quite as splayed over John's torso.

John was staring up at the ceiling, and Sherlock thought the difficult talking bit was over, thank God. Then he saw John's Adam's apple bob a few times before he said, still not looking directly at Sherlock, "So, yesterday, Mycroft and Greg stopped by? And Mrs Hudson?"

Sherlock sighed and rested his head carefully on John's upper arm. _Of course. __I knew he was the reason they all ganged up on me. _"You could've just asked me."

"Love, I've been asking you for years." John turned his head to look at him, eyes still moist from a few minutes ago, and stroked Sherlock's chin with one finger.

"I would have taken them this time if you asked me. I didn't need everyone to know."

"They're your friends and family."

"And now that they know, they can keep tabs on me. Make sure I'm taking them."

"Yes. That's exactly it, Sherlock."

"Because you don't trust me."

"Because I love you but I know how reluctant you always are to follow through on this."

Sherlock huffed a breath against John's arm. _I'm taking the drugs. __Can we please drop this topic?_

John didn't drop it. "Which one did you go with?"

"Amitriptyline."

John nodded. "Good. It's older but I do think a tri-cyclic will be easier on your stomach than the others were."

"I know. You told me months ago. I do listen to you, you know."

"Right. You listen, and then do what you want."

"John. I'm taking it, all right? I took it last night. One pill. And now I'm tired." He paused, then admitted, "But it's not as bad as I feared. I was really out last night, but I don't feel groggy or slow today, just like a nap would be a good idea."

John reached to hold Sherlock's hand again and said, "I might end up on an SSRI. Prozac or Lustral, most likely. But they can interfere with my blood thinners, so they're holding off for now."

Sherlock considered that. John had been taking Prozac when they met. It hadn't worked. Meeting Sherlock had been what worked. That wasn't bragging on Sherlock's part; it was just a fact. Unless maybe the Prozac had kept John from killing himself before they met. He pushed the thought away. "Are you depressed?"

John lifted his head to peer down at him. "What do you think?"

Sherlock gave a half-hearted smile. "I know, stupid question. I did say I was tired."

"All right. Shove over." John flexed his arm that Sherlock was leaning on. "We'll both close our eyes and maybe we'll sleep and all these stupid emotions will be gone when we wake up."

Sherlock felt his smile turn a bit more genuine. "You sound like me, John. No wonder I love you so much." He scooted over to the bed's other pillow and closed his eyes, leaving just one finger extended so he could touch John as he slept.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note:<em>

_I know I haven't been very interactive with my readers on this site, but come visit me on Tumblr. __I started a blog about writing fanfic and I'm hoping to be able to bounce ideas off my readers._ _I could really use the feedback and encouragement since I don't have anyone who reads this before I post. My tumblr name is missdaviswrites_


	10. Chapter 10

A week passed, and although at any given moment it seemed as if nothing changed, Sherlock knew that wasn't true. John no longer winced at the mention of physio, and he could now usually get himself in and out of the wheelchair without any help. They continued to nap together every afternoon when Sherlock came to visit, but after the first few days Sherlock thought he could probably have skipped the extra sleep if he needed to. He kept the amitriptyline at a half-dose and waited, unsure how he would know if or when it was working. Mycroft stayed with him each night, sleeping on the inflatable airbed while Sherlock took the sofa. Neither one of them mentioned the arrangement or how long it would last, but then one morning Sherlock woke up and Mycroft's bag was gone. _Finally. __I guess I can be trusted to swallow a pill on my own._ Mycroft had left the mattress inflated, spare blanket folded neatly atop it. Sherlock thought he might try it out for himself that night, but when he got back from visiting John that evening, Lestrade was waiting in the stairwell, overnight bag at his side.

"Hey, Sherlock. Mind if I crash here tonight? Had a fight with my girl."

"No, you didn't." Sherlock kicked the door to the street closed behind him and raised his hand in greeting to Mrs Hudson, who was lingering just inside her flat.

"Yeah, I did." Lestrade stood and hoisted his bag over his shoulder.

"You did not. The two of you had a quickie before you came over here. Besides, you're not even living together. You spend the night at hers sometimes but you still have your own place."

Lestrade sighed. "Yeah, all right. I'm staying here for a while, though. I promised your brother."

"I do not need a babysitter."

That assertion had no more effect on Lestrade than it had on Mycroft. "I know. We just don't want you to have to be alone."

"And I don't want to be alone, trust me. But that doesn't mean I want you here." He pushed past Lestrade to head up the stairs, feeling his shoulders tense beneath his coat when he heard Lestrade follow him into the flat.

Lestrade deposited his bag on the coffee table. "Come on, Sherlock. You need help around this place anyway."

"With what? I've spent every morning this week uncluttering the kitchen so it can be renovated."

Lestrade glanced over into the kitchen, which had almost completely clear worktops for the first time since Sherlock had moved in. "Hey, that's not a bad job you did. This room's still a nightmare, though."

Sherlock glared at him and dropped down onto the airbed. Both ends popped up around him. "You get the sofa. I get this. I don't care if you're the guest."

Lestrade shrugged. "Sofa's not going to slowly deflate on me as I sleep, now, is it? I've seen my kids go through enough of those mattresses to know they don't last."

"Please. It held Mycroft. I hardly think it will collapse under my weight."

"Yeah, it's not the weight, though. It's how gently you treat it. I give it one night with you on it."

Sherlock shook his head and rolled onto his stomach, toed off his shoes and let them fall onto the ground. "If you want to help you can make me some tea."

Lestrade snorted. "I will but only if I can find a beer in that bloody fridge of yours."

* * *

><p>Lestrade didn't snore, but whereas Mycroft had been gone each day by the time Sherlock woke up, Lestrade hung around and ate breakfast and <em>chatted<em> in the morning. Sherlock was already on edge because the last of the three contractors he had contacted was finally coming out to look at the flat today. Dealing with the first two earlier in the week had been agonising, and he didn't need to add Lestrade's chatter to the mix.

"Don't you need to go to work or something?"

Lestrade drained the last of his coffee. "Yeah, all right, guess I should." He pushed his chair back from the kitchen table and stood. "I'll be back tonight around nine."

"You don't need to come back."

Lestrade hesitated for a moment; Sherlock could feel his eyes on him but did not look up from the toast he was buttering. Finally Lestrade replied, "Sherlock, you're thirty-nine years old and sleeping on a blow-up mattress even though you have a perfectly good bed down the hall. I think you need someone to stay with you still. I'll see you tonight."

Lestrade left and Sherlock shoved his knife so hard into the jar of jam that it slid off the worktop and spilled across the floor, dark red against the dull lino. He cleaned it up and threw the rest of his breakfast in the bin and then tried to figure out what to do with all the piles of magazines in the sitting room while he waited for today's contractor to show up. The first two had been ridiculously late and this one was no better.

He had attempted to be friendly with the first one, and had managed to stay civil with the second, even though he was clearly an idiot who only stayed in business because he lowballed all his estimates, but by now Sherlock was fed up. They should be knocking down walls by now. Or at least pulling out the kitchen cabinets and worktop; that seemed to be more of the type of work everyone was discussing. Sherlock wouldn't mind a good wall demolition, though, as long as they let him help. But they weren't even close to starting yet; everyone was still just talking and writing up proposals and sketches and costs. Boring and not really achieving anything, was it?

By the time today's appointment—Dave? no, Dan—showed up, a half-hour late, Sherlock had moved a dozen large piles of magazines upstairs into the spare bedroom and was even less inclined than usual to make small talk. He'd already had this conversation twice this week, so he skipped the niceties and led Dan into the kitchen, pointing out everything he'd discussed with the others.

"We don't need to keep the pocket doors, but this entrance is already quite wide, so I don't see a reason to get rid of them. But the other door is only 32 inches, the worktops and sink will all need to be lowered, obviously, and when we eat in here we use this little table over here and I usually have my chemistry equipment on the big table but we could switch that around. John hates me doing chemistry in the kitchen but it really is the best place for it."

"John?" Dan paused in his notebook scribbling and looked up at Sherlock.

_So that's how it's going to be, is it? _Well, he hadn't had a good excuse to punch anyone in a while. "Yes, John," he said. "My partner. Boyfriend. Lover." God, he hated all those terms. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, John is my son's name. But I'm thinking you'll want two sinks at different heights since you're a tall bloke and you're not going to want to bend over that far to do the washing up."

Sherlock opened his mouth to say that John always did the washing up but then realised he could have his very own sink reserved for experiments and John couldn't complain or nag him to clean it out. "That's an excellent idea," he said, and forgot all about wanting to punch someone.

* * *

><p>Dan the contractor actually had a few other good ideas and as a result his visit took longer than Sherlock expected, but he still managed to make it to the rehab centre precisely at two. John had made a special request the day before and Sherlock was looking forward to fulfilling it.<p>

The receptionist smiled when she saw him. "Oh, hi, Mr Holmes. John's out at the moment but you're welcome to wait in his room if you want. Is that a violin?"

Sherlock shifted the case from his right hand to his left. _What else would be in a case of this size and shape?_ "What do you mean, he's 'out?' Where did he go?"

She shrugged. "Went out with his case manager an hour or so ago. Didn't say where. They don't tell me anything. Is it your violin? Do you play?"

Sherlock sighed and nodded and walked away before she could ask any more questions. He had been trying very hard not to antagonise anyone at the centre while John was staying here, and he thought he was doing remarkably well considering the level of stupidity here was about equal to that of the general population. Sometimes he just had to walk away.

John had specifically asked him to bring his violin and now he wasn't here to hear it, although Sherlock guessed it wasn't his fault. He didn't really have much control over his daily schedule, after all, and he'd doubtless be back soon, so there would be plenty of time to play for him. He helped himself to a couple of biscuits John had left on the table and then got out the violin. He'd only played once in the months since John had been injured, that first night he'd been home, and the lack of practice would probably show. He started with some scales to warm up and had only been playing for a few minutes when a knock at the door interrupted him. He winced; he'd tried to keep the volume down but of course he was still too loud. John had thought it would be okay to play here, but Sherlock should've known there would be someone who would object.

He set the bow down on the table and went to the door, clutching the violin by its neck, surprised at how calming it was just to hold it. Which he needed, because he would not allow himself to be rude to whoever was about to complain about the noise. _For John. __He has to live here for weeks yet, and I won't make it unpleasant for him. _ God, he couldn't wait till John was back home and he could go back to being himself.

He fixed an appropriately contrite expression on his face and pulled open the door. "So sorry," he said to the woman standing there. He tipped his head and smiled at her. "I know I'm quite out of practice, and I didn't intend to be so loud."

She looked up at him, surprise evident. Short, overweight, hair dyed too dark for her age: he'd seen her before, but she wasn't an employee. A spouse of one of the other patients, perhaps? Not worth the effort to try to remember. "I'll stop," he told her, and moved to shut the door.

"No, no, no," she said, and put her hand out against the closing door. He pulled it open again so she could speak. _Remember: can't be rude._

"It's lovely," she said.

"I was only playing scales."

"Well, they were lovely," she told him.

"Thank you," he said, and nodded and tried to close the door again. _Honestly_.

This time she stuck her foot out to stop the door. "You could leave it open, if you want. Or—" She looked over her shoulder, though Sherlock didn't think anyone else was out in the hall with her. "You could come and play for us in the lounge."

He blinked at her. _Play for us_. She wanted him to come play songs for a bunch of strangers. He didn't really mind an audience, truth be told, but he didn't play so he could entertain others. Except John, of course, who wasn't even here. And who would undoubtedly encourage him to do exactly what this woman was asking. He blinked his eyes closed one more time and said, "Let me get my bow."

The lounge was just down the hall from John's room, close enough that when they showed films in the late afternoon it invariably woke John and Sherlock from their shared nap, so it made sense that the people who were in there had heard Sherlock's violin. And there was a small crowd gathered, spread across the sofas and armchairs that were arranged with space for wheelchairs between them. At least a dozen people, split between patients and their families with a couple of staff members lounging about as well. Nearly everyone turned to look at him when he entered; his fingers clenched around the frog of his bow and he had to remind himself to relax. _It's just a few people who want to hear music; it's not a recital. _ He'd deleted the specifics of the last time he'd been forced to perform in a formal setting; he'd been thirteen, and all he remembered was that it had been bad enough that Mummy had never even tried to make him do it again.

He thought maybe he should say something or introduce himself, but instead he just brought the violin to his chin and started in on a scale again. After a moment he sat down on one of the loveseats. He preferred to play standing up, but he felt odd being the only one on his feet and sitting down made it feel more casual and less like he was on display. He paused to tweak one of the tuning pegs that didn't really need it and then said, "Any requests?"

"Do you know any fiddle music?" asked the woman who had fetched him out here.

_Of course. _ He suppressed a sigh. "Of course," he said, and started to play. John would be back soon to rescue him, he hoped. But though more people kept coming into the room to listen, he played for nearly an hour before John finally arrived, a welcome figure hovering at the edge of his vision as he finished the song.

When he was done he lowered the violin to greet John with a grin, the agitation he'd felt at his absence gone at the sight of John's answering smile. John's face was flushed; it was caused by the wind outside, not physical exertion. He gestured at Sherlock's audience and said, "Giving concerts now, are you?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows just a bit. "Needed an audience, and they were willing," he said, as if he ever would've done this if he hadn't been asked. _You weren't here._

"Well, don't stop on account of me." John shrugged out of his coat and laid it on the loveseat, across the arm farthest from Sherlock. He seemed relaxed, as if he'd just done something that made him nervous and he was relieved that it was over. Where had he been? The rumpled state of his trousers and jumper said that he'd been out of the wheelchair numerous times, but he wasn't sweaty or dressed for a physical workout, and there'd be no reason for him to leave the building for that anyway. Wherever he'd gone, he certainly would've travelled in one of the centre's vans, not a car, so he wouldn't have needed to get out of the chair for that. The horrible bulky wheelchair he was using didn't even fold up to fit in a car boot. Eventually he'd get his own chair and it would be smaller and collapsible and—_oh._

John had gone out to select his new wheelchair. There was a large medical supply store about five miles away. For some reason the thought that he'd gone without Sherlock was a bit vexing, which didn't make much sense, but there it was. Sherlock swallowed down his irritation and started to play one last song, his own composition this time, one he knew John liked.

John came closer as he played, and Sherlock had to focus so as not to be too distracted from the music when John swung himself out of the chair to sit next to him on the loveseat. When he finished playing, he set the violin and bow on the table to his left and John leaned against him, slipping his arm behind Sherlock. "Let's stay and watch the film, all right?"

Sherlock shrugged. He wasn't likely to enjoy whatever film they were showing, but there was always a snack provided and if John wanted to cuddle against him for two hours that would be acceptable. He turned his head to inhale the scent of John's hair and waited for most of the people in the room to stop paying attention to them before saying, "You ordered your new chair today."

"Yeah. I should have it in about a week or so."

"You picked it out without me?"

"Well, yeah. You weren't here."

"I—visiting hours don't start until two. I was following the rules."

John squinted up at him. "You're actually upset."

"No, I'm not." He frowned and tried to explain what he felt, though he didn't really understand it himself. Disappointment, maybe. "I just thought I'd be there to help."

"I had help. You're not an expert on everything, love. There were people there who actually knew about—stuff."

_He still doesn't like to even say the word wheelchair. __I should've been there with him._ Sherlock smiled and tried to make light of it. "I could've offered my opinions. Colour choices. You always need my opinion there."

"Colour was the least of it. I went with black, by the way." John rubbed his hand over his eyes and then rested his head on Sherlock's arm, so he was looking straight ahead. "There were a lot of choices to make. Not fashion but function. Different options. It was a little overwhelming."

"That's the kind of thing I would've helped with."

"No, you would've been impatient and just picked the most expensive options available."

"I would've picked the best options for you. I wouldn't have considered the cost." Did John really think Sherlock had been impatient recently? Because he was pretty sure he'd never been so patient and well-behaved in his life.

"Well, I did pick the best options, I think. I—" He looked up at Sherlock again. "I wasn't trying to exclude you on purpose. I just thought it was something I could do on my own. I didn't even think about you being there. All right?"

Sherlock sighed and lifted his arm to draw John closer. "Well, since I'm reno'ing our whole flat without any input from you, I guess we'll call it even. Now shut up and let me watch this film."

John mock-punched his arm and giggled and two of the women sitting nearby turned around to stare at them and Sherlock stared back and put his chin on top of John's head and spent the next two hours not paying any attention at all to anything that flickered on the screen in front of them.

* * *

><p><em>Come follow me on tumblr for updates as I struggle with the writing thing. My username there is MissDavisWrites<em>


	11. Chapter 11

Two weeks later and 221B Baker Street no longer had a functioning kitchen or shower, which was why Sherlock was now spending his nights sleeping on the airbed downstairs in Mrs Hudson's flat. She said she was grateful for the company. She was also much more likely than either Mycroft or Lestrade had been to serve biscuits for breakfast. Lately she'd taken to making huge batches almost daily and sending them with Sherlock when he went to visit John.

Today she'd made butter biscuits filled with raspberry preserves. Sherlock left the bulk of them at the front desk when he got to the rehab centre; as always there were far more than he and John could eat, even with John's appetite and Sherlock's sweet tooth.

For once John was waiting for him when he got to his room. Sherlock looked him over. He'd been out again; he was wearing chinos and a button-down. Where—ah, he had the new chair. It was one hundred percent different from the old one, but it had still taken Sherlock a moment to notice, because he'd been distracted by John's expression: a shy, uncertain smile Sherlock hadn't seen directed at him in ages.

"So, what do you think?" John's words were casual but Sherlock could hear the apprehension behind them, see the way he had to stop his hands from clenching convulsively on the slim, contoured arms of the wheelchair.

He wasn't even sure what response John hoped to hear._ It's perfect. Good choice with the black. It's horrible. I will never not hate to see you unable to stand. _What he said was, "It's tiny."

John raised his eyebrows. "Not exactly words I want to hear coming out of your mouth, but fair enough, I suppose."

"I mean—"

"No, no, it's all right." John was smiling, and some of the tension had eased out of his posture, so it probably really was all right. "I know what you mean. I did think the ultra-lightweight would be best, and since my balance is good I don't need a lot of back support . . . ." He trailed off and looked up at Sherlock, his expression hopeful but with just a touch of—was that shame? Something in Sherlock's chest clutched painfully.

He stepped forward and leaned down for a kiss. John exhaled and opened his mouth; he'd eaten something spicy for lunch, and had shaved last night instead of this morning. Sherlock trapped John's head between his hands and John reached up to unbutton Sherlock's coat and slid his hands around his waist, pulling him closer. Sherlock hunched more and then brought his right knee up to rest it between John's legs, sinking down but careful to put his weight on the seat of the chair, not on John. He pulled back from the kiss enough to ask if the position was okay, and John nodded.

"Isn't there a weight limit on this thing?" Sherlock asked, only half in jest.

John pulled him down farther until he was more or less perched in his lap, though with one foot still on the floor. "It's fine. It's under warranty."

Sherlock huffed a laugh and then kissed him again, one hand in John's hair and the other exploring John's back, ranging first over the muscles bunched beneath his shirt and then down lower, until his fingers found the back of the chair, a thin, rigid cushion wrapped in nylon around a metal frame. It really was a small chair, even given John's size; the back and arms seemed mere suggestions of what Sherlock thought of as standard wheelchair features. The wheels were thin, as well, and canted inward just a bit, making the chair wider at the base than the seat, though Sherlock could see that it would still fit easily through the new doorways that were going in back at their flat. He ran his thumb back and forth across the curve of the chair's arm until John reached to still his hand. Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's neck and said, "It's the perfect size—we both fit. You didn't need me to help pick it out after all."

"Well, we'll see how well it works out." John leaned back in the chair and Sherlock stood up, shedding his coat. John watched him, one hand going up to rub at the base of his neck in what was becoming a habitual gesture.

"Got some stiffness again?"

"Yeah, but I've got a massage appointment in a little while. You're coming with."

"Oh, do I get a massage, too?"

John gave him a bit of a smile. "Maybe later, if you're good. First you're going to learn a few techniques."

Sherlock shook out the wrinkles from his jacket and trousers. "I think we can agree I already have some experience in massaging you, don't you think?"

"Yes, well this is the sort of massage where at least one of us stays fully dressed, hmm? Just give it a chance, all right? For me? I guarantee you'll learn something new."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Fine. If you want me to watch some young woman rub her hands all over you, I will."

"How do you know it's a woman?"

"Oh, it's a woman."

John chuckled. "All right. But she's probably close to your age."

"Right. Like I said. A young woman. Lead me to her."

The young woman's name was Jenny—_how common_—and she was as annoyingly perky as most of the other staff Sherlock had met, but she knew what she was doing and how to explain it as she went along, gently palpating John's legs in what she called myofascial release and then more firmly working the muscles in his torso and arms. It was nothing Sherlock couldn't have learned in a few minutes from YouTube, but it made John happy when he paid attention, so he watched and listened as she over-explained everything she was doing.

"It's not bad yet, but you'll find as time goes by the paralysed muscles will contract and become more rigid, so the goal with massage is to try to keep them as relaxed and pliable as possible for as long as possible."

She handed him a few sheets of paper which Sherlock declined to take. "I'll remember," he said.

"Oh, just take them," John said, lifting his head so he wasn't speaking into the hole in the headrest of the massage table. "I can use some of it on you, too, you know."

Sherlock grunted an acknowledgement—_that is not a terrible idea_—and folded the instructions in half so they would fit in his pocket.

John laughed and dropped his head back down. "You're trying to work out where we can fit a massage table in the flat, aren't you?"

Sherlock didn't respond, because that was exactly what he was doing. The renovations were making the space more open, but it needed to stay that way for John to be able to manoeuvre around the flat.

"They make portable tables that fold up, you know," Jenny said. She got up off the stool she'd been using and pushed it toward Sherlock. "All right, have a go. Let's see if it's as easy as you think it is."

Sherlock shrugged out of his jacket and settled onto the stool. He'd already been to physical therapy with John a couple of times and learned how to help with his exercises, especially those designed to keep his legs from atrophying too much. They weren't much fun. He wanted to help and would continue to do so, but the feel of the unresponsive muscles beneath his hands was a bit unnerving and he couldn't get past the idea that he would do something wrong and injure John without either of them realising it. The exercises to help improve John's balance and upper body strength were better, but he didn't need much assistance with those.

The massage started out much the same, except that John's skin was bare. Feet, calves, thighs, check for unusual muscle tension, pressure sores, any signs of a blood clot. Don't apply too much pressure and don't forget to move the sheet to keep John covered because he's going to get cold even though it's warm in here.

John kept up a steady conversation, mostly with Jenny, as Sherlock worked his way up his body. It was only when he reached the middle of John's back that the stream of words petered out. At first Sherlock thought he was hurting him; he'd skirted the injury site and line of surgical scars, which meant that John could now feel the pressure of Sherlock's hands.

"Too hard?" he asked. _Was I pressing too hard where he couldn't feel it?_

"No, it's good. Perfect." John tipped his head to the side to smile back at Sherlock. "Keep going, please."

Sherlock hesitated only a second as he realised that the constant stream of words before now had been because John had been . . . nervous? Why? Embarrassed? About what? Sherlock touching him? Had he suddenly reverted to his old "I'm not gay" position in the presence of a pretty young massage therapist? Unlikely, given the half-lidded look he was giving Sherlock right now, and the way he relaxed under his touch.

No, John was enjoying the feel of Sherlock's hands on him, chaste as it was at the moment, and he wasn't ashamed. But . . . maybe he had been a moment ago? He wasn't embarrassed to let Jenny see Sherlock touching him, though. No, it was worse than that.

Sherlock lifted his hands from the sleek muscles of John's back and slid the stool back down along the table again, so he could reach John's legs.

"What are you doing?" John asked, craning his neck to look back at Sherlock.

_An experiment. _"Just checking something," he replied, reaching out to glide his fingertips over the side of John's right calf.

Jenny looked up from where she was typing notes in John's file. "Something wrong? I didn't notice anything unusual."

"No, it's nothing," Sherlock said. Nothing physical, at least, but the expression he'd caught on John's face when he'd touched his calf again made it clear what the problem was. John didn't like Sherlock touching his legs. Sherlock slid back up to the top of the table and set his hands to the sides of John's ribs, closing his eyes while he worked on the latissimus dorsi muscles and recalled every detail of John's behaviour while Jenny had been massaging him. It hadn't bothered him when she touched his paralysed limbs; it was just Sherlock that made him uncomfortable.

He made his way up John's back. All of his muscles were quite tense, despite having already been seen to by Jenny, but Sherlock knew it was because John had been using his upper body so much more than he ever had before. It wasn't all negative; he didn't think it was his imagination that John's arm muscles were already more defined than they had been before he was injured. He brushed his hands over his triceps and tried not to get too distracted. The scar on John's shoulder: he knew there was a spot there that had no feeling at all. He pressed his thumb against it while his fingers kneaded John's shoulders. _It doesn't bother him when I touch him there; it's just his lower body._

When he was done he ran his fingers through the somewhat shaggy hair on the back of John's head and asked, "Neck and shoulders feeling better?"

"Yeah." John pushed himself up a bit and turned to give Sherlock a quick kiss. "Thank you."

Sherlock put both hands on the table next to John and pushed himself up off the stool. "I was told I was required to attend this training session, so . . . ." He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

John snorted a laugh and Jenny came over to help him roll over on the narrow table. He put his clothes on, still slow and awkward with the trousers and shoes. When he was done he looked from Sherlock to Jenny, clenched his fist a couple of times and said, "Do you think it'd be okay if Sherlock—?" He tapped the massage table he was still sitting on.

Jenny raised both her hands. "I can't touch him, but my next appointment's not for twenty minutes and I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on, if you want to use the table. I can't leave you in here alone, though. Sorry."

"That's fine," Sherlock said, unbuttoning his shirt. "We aren't to be trusted alone, anyway. Everyone knows that."

He left his trousers on, though if he thought there would be time for a full body massage he would've stripped down without hesitation, whether or not Jenny was watching. The lack of modesty about his body was something he shared with John, although now apparently John was too shy to even let Sherlock touch him without getting uncomfortable.

He watched John swing himself off the table and into his new chair and—_oh, of course_. Of course he had gotten the smallest, most minimalistic wheelchair he could find, not because it was lightweight or easy to use, but because he was so self-conscious about it. John had always had something of a tendency to not want to be noticed, and he always tried to act normal and blend in. He wasn't normal, obviously—he and Sherlock probably wouldn't even know each other if he were—but he always pretended, at least around other people. But now the wheelchair would make it harder for him to avoid notice, so he had picked the most unobtrusive model he could find. Sherlock couldn't really fault him for that, if it made him more comfortable. He just wished John's self-consciousness didn't extend to him. He should never have any reason to feel awkward around Sherlock in any way.

_Conditioning, that's what he needs._ John just needed to get used to the idea of Sherlock's hands everywhere on him again, even when he couldn't feel it. He filed the idea away for later; it wasn't going to be something that happened quickly, but there would be time. He sighed and climbed onto the table.

John's hands were cool but strong and sure when he laid them on Sherlock's shoulders. "Jesus, you're too skinny, Sherlock. How much weight have you lost?"

"I've gained two pounds since I started the amitriptyline." Another side effect, one he hadn't even thought to worry about.

"Yeah, but you must've lost at least a stone before that. You need to eat more."

He didn't try to deny John's estimate. "I am eating. Two pounds in three weeks, John. At that rate I'll be back where I was in a few months and then I'll have to start buying new clothes."

"You love buying new clothes. You buy new clothes all the time."

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"I learnt from the best." John dug his fingers into the tight muscles on Sherlock's shoulder and Sherlock grunted in surprise. Apparently he was just as tense as John had been, even though he hadn't been using his muscles in any unusual manner. Although sleeping on the airbed for weeks at a time probably wasn't helping. It would be better when John was back home, and they were back in their bedroom where they belonged. Maybe he would get a massage table for the flat; they'd never needed any excuse to touch each other before, but maybe that would help.

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><p><em>If anyone with any medical knowledge is reading this, feel free to let me know if you see any problems. I keep thinking I'm done with most of the medical stuff and then I have more to write. And come visit me on tumblr: MissDavisWrites!<em>


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's note: This chapter is where the fic starts to earn the Mature rating as far as sexual content goes. It's just a small paragraph or so that is slightly graphic so you could skip that if you want, though there will be more in later chapters._

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><p>"Are you sure I don't need a jacket and tie?" John fiddled with the collar of his shirt for the hundredth time that afternoon, his eyes going to Sherlock's reflection in the mirror.<p>

"Oh, for God's sake. I'm not wearing a tie." Sherlock let his head drop back onto the arm of the loveseat. He had been sprawled here watching John get dressed for the past half-hour. _I am getting him out of this room if it kills me. Out of this building._

"But you're wearing a suit. What if there's a dress code?"

"John, I have passed by that restaurant twice a day for the last month and a half. There is no dress code." He planted his feet on the floor and stood up, crossed the room to stand behind John. He put his hands on John's shoulders and looked at him in the mirror. "It's a casual restaurant, and even if it weren't, you look fine. Let me remind you that I did not eat lunch and am actually hungry."

John brought his hands up to rest on top of Sherlock's and took a deep breath, examining his reflection. "Let me just find a jumper that matches."

Sherlock groaned and pulled away in defeat. "The brown cardigan," he said, and flopped back down onto the loveseat to wait while John tried to postpone leaving the rehab centre just a little bit longer.

At first Sherlock had dismissed it when one of the nurses took him aside and told him that John was refusing to join any sort of excursion outside of the rehab centre. John wasn't the sort to enjoy a group outing to some art exhibition or tourist attraction; that didn't mean he was avoiding the outside world. Then the nurse had suggested that Sherlock take him out someplace himself, and Sherlock had subsequently spent the last week attempting to take John to dinner. There was a restaurant not even a mile down the road that several people recommended; it had a decent wine list and wheelchair accessibility: perfect. And over the last week John had proceeded to be too tired, not that hungry, really looking forward to taco night in the dining room, and absolutely not about to miss the screenings of _Casablanca_, _Star Wars_, and something called _Gremlins _in the lounge. So, yes, avoiding the real world. But it was stopping now. When John started dithering over the sweater, Sherlock threw his coat at him. "Come on. I had the front desk call a cab and it's waiting."

The cabbie got out of the car when they approached, nodded hello and then walked around to the boot of the cab. Sherlock realised what he was doing just as John tensed and said, "No, er, we won't be needing that, thanks."

The cabbie looked up at Sherlock first and then at John. "You sure, mate? The ramp makes it easy."

"Nope. No, it doesn't. I can get in just fine, thanks." John's anger was under control but clear, probably even to the cabbie. Sherlock's impulse was to step in but he had no idea how to do so without angering John further. He glared at the cabbie instead.

The cabbie shrugged and stepped away from the boot. "Suit yourself. You want the swivel chair instead?"

"No." John's voice grated; Sherlock watched as he curled his fists twice and then reached out to pull open the cab's rear door. He moved back as it opened, keeping the chair's movements smooth now, after weeks of practice, and then rolled up close to door. There were yellow grab bars inside the cab; John used them to swing himself into the car, muttering under his breath as he did so.

Sherlock stepped toward the cab and the now-empty wheelchair, wondering if he should put it in the boot, but before he could John reached out and grabbed it. He watched John collapse the frame with a few precise, decisive movements of his gloved hands and then pull it into the cabin of the car with him. _That's my John_. The odd thought sent a shiver down his spine. _Of course it is. Who else would it be?_

Sherlock shook himself and then walked around the cab to climb in on the other side. He told the driver where to go, settled into the seat next to John and automatically reached for his hand. John threaded his fingers through Sherlock's and Sherlock relaxed back against the seat; this was how they always sat in cabs. _Nothing has changed._ Then John started to mutter again, only now Sherlock could hear him. "I learnt how to do that. Sherlock, I am 44 years old and someone had to teach me how to get into a car." He tightened his fingers around Sherlock's and Sherlock knew he was supposed to commiserate or console or something to that effect but instead he just felt the strength of John's grip and remembered the way his arms had looked a moment ago, how the muscles on his wrists had stood out where they peeked from between his coat sleeves and his gloves. He pulled his hand away from John so he could peel off his own gloves and shove them in his pocket, then circled his fingers around John's wrist.

"What are you doing?"

"Touching your bare skin, obviously. Are you objecting?"

"It's a little weird."

"Are you objecting?"

"No." John looked up from their joined hands to Sherlock's face for a moment, then shifted his gaze to look past him out the window. "We didn't need to take a cab, you know. You said it was close."

"Mmm." Sherlock tugged off John's glove and ran his fingers over the calluses that littered his palm.

"Are you listening to me at all?"

"It's cold out and the area is not especially pedestrian-friendly. And look how fast we got here in the cab. Well worth the cost." He let go of John's hand and returned the glove he had stolen. "I don't even mind paying."

That got a snort of laughter, and Sherlock reached forward to pay the driver, watching from the corner of his eye as John exited the cab, again sure and steady in his handling of the wheelchair.

He held the restaurant door open for John. _I don't care how independent he wants to be. He cannot possibly object to me holding the door for him; it's just common courtesy. _

John didn't seem to mind, though he did stop abruptly once they were through the second set of doors and into the restaurant proper. The hostess glanced at them and then asked, "Just the two of you?" She was focused on Sherlock but that was nothing unusual.

Sherlock brushed his hand against John's shoulder and nodded. "If you have a somewhat private table, we'd appreciate it." Though there were numerous people at the rehab centre who had recognised them from the news, everyone there had been extremely respectful of their privacy, and he didn't need that to end the moment they stepped back into the real world. Especially since it had been so hard to get John out here in the first place.

"Of course." She smiled at him and then even more so at John because women had not stopped flirting with John since he'd been hurt; some seemed even more likely to initiate the flirting now. _Maybe they see him as more harmless, less of a threat? _ As if John were somehow less threatening now. Sherlock suppressed his own smile as they followed her to a table at the back of the restaurant.

The dining room seemed to have an unusual amount of space between the tables. Though there was no one else in a wheelchair at the moment, Sherlock realised they must get a fair amount of custom from the rehab centre, and have planned the interior accordingly.

It took a little while, but John relaxed as the meal progressed. He only had one glass of wine, so Sherlock knew it couldn't be attributed to that. _We're both sitting and no one can really see the wheelchair unless they look for it. God, how long is this going to last?_ John would be going home from rehab in less than a week._ He can't spend the rest of his life being so self-conscious he wants to hide. _ Sherlock sighed and ordered himself a second glass of wine, though it was probably going to make him sleepy.

They'd gone out early enough that by the time they got back to the rehab centre there were still a couple of hours before Sherlock had to leave, so he followed John back to his room. There was some sort of vocal performance going on in the lounge, just loud enough for them to hear without quite being able to identify the songs. It sounded like pop music, but John usually liked that sort of thing. "Don't you want to go listen?"

John shook his head. "But don't forget you're supposed to play again tomorrow."

"I won't forget. My penultimate performance." He raised his eyebrows and gave a mock scowl. He'd been playing twice a week since the first time he'd been coerced into performing for an audience. After the first time he'd learned not to ask for requests, though; an appalling number of people here seemed to prefer to hear the fiddle to the violin.

John pulled off his jumper and tossed it into the wardrobe. He stretched and cracked his neck and said, without turning to look at Sherlock, "Thanks. For making me go out. I know I was difficult about it."

Sherlock dropped his coat on the loveseat and shrugged, downplaying John's reluctance. "It was just dinner. You like dinner."

"I know. I had a good time." He turned around and nodded at the bed. "Let's lie down. I miss our little naps."

"I haven't been as tired the last couple weeks." Sherlock slipped out of his shoes and hung his jacket on the knob of the wardrobe.

"No, me neither. But I could go for a cuddle right now."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You can't tell anyone, though. I still have a reputation."

"Oh, please. Everyone knows you're a cuddler. I'm pretty sure it's been on the blog."

Sherlock glared at him and then used that as an excuse to stare while John swung himself onto the bed. _At what point did I start finding his inability to walk arousing? _ That wasn't quite accurate—_it's still completely repulsive_—but John's competence around his disability, that was starting to appeal.

John rolled onto his side; the movement was never going to be smooth, and watching him pull his legs into position was decidedly not sexy, but Sherlock couldn't help but admire the way his shoulders moved beneath his shirt, the easy grace of his hands. _Yes, it's competent John. Gets me every time._

He wanted those arms around him, so he laid down on his side, not facing John, and then eased himself back until their bodies met.

"Mm." John slung his left arm over Sherlock's hip. "You want a back rub?" He skated the fingers of his other hand up Sherlock's spine, too light to be a massage.

Sherlock arched his head back as John reached his neck. "No. Just hold me." He scooted back a little more, spooning firmly against John.

John tightened his arm around Sherlock's middle and pressed a kiss against his neck. Sherlock shivered and slipped his fingers through John's to pull his hand up higher, onto his stomach, because if it strayed any lower this was going to quickly move beyond just a cuddle, at least on Sherlock's end, and he didn't want to pressure John.

John wound the fingers of his other hand through Sherlock's hair. His breath was warm against the skin just below Sherlock's ear, and Sherlock closed his eyes and relaxed into his embrace. He let himself enjoy the weight of John's arm across his ribs and then John inhaled sharply and his fingers stuttered in Sherlock's hair.

"You okay?"

"Er, yeah." John swallowed and lifted his head from the pillow. "I think I'm getting hard."

Sherlock turned his head to get a glimpse of John's face over his shoulder. "From kissing my neck?"

"Apparently."

"And you can—feel it?" No one had really said much about what John's sex life might be like now, and the research Sherlock had done online had been frustratingly inconclusive.

"Sort of, indirectly, I guess? The rest of my body's got all the signals, I think." He paused, then added, "It's kind of warm."

Sherlock pressed his arse back into John's groin. "You are definitely hard."

John put his face against Sherlock's shoulder and giggled. "I feel like I'm thirteen."

"Did you press your cock against a lot of men's arses when you were thirteen?"

"Not in the least. But, I can't say for sure, but I think I might go off really, really quickly."

Sherlock gave another backward thrust against him and then rolled so they were facing each other and he could catch John's mouth with his. He slid his hand down to press against the bulge in John's trousers, then stopped the kiss long enough to ask, "Can you feel my hand?"

John shook his head and leaned back up into a kiss again. He moaned and Sherlock quickly undid John's flies and slid his hand inside his pants. He wanted to ask if John could feel his fingers now—he wanted to collect every possible bit of data about John's reaction—but John was kissing him too urgently, thrusting his tongue roughly and rapidly as far as he could into Sherlock's mouth.

John's cock felt the same as it always had to Sherlock. It filled the curve of his hand, leaking already. He closed his fingers around it and gave a few quick pulls, felt it thicken even more. Sherlock knew that was probably just a reflex from being stroked, but John had gotten aroused without being touched directly, which had to be a good sign. He brought his other hand up to cup John's cheek and thrust his own tongue back against the insistent push of John's. John gasped and abruptly pulled his mouth away and then Sherlock's hand and John's pants were coated as John's torso trembled against him.

Sherlock pulled his hand out and stretched to snag a couple of tissues from the box next to the bed. "Are you all right?" he asked, tossing the used tissues to the floor.

John nodded and pressed his face against Sherlock's shoulder. He was flushed and still trembling but Sherlock needed to know more about what had just happened. "How was it?"

John rubbed his face against Sherlock's shirt a couple times and steadied his breathing, then pulled back to speak. "Okay. Not quite . . . the full experience, I guess? It's hard to describe. It's more the rest of my body that could feel it."

Sherlock looked at him, trying to imagine what that might feel like, and then licked at John's ear and flicked at his nipple through his shirt.

John shivered. "Yeah. Like that. It was . . . better than I had let myself hope, though." He twisted his torso toward Sherlock, throwing himself over Sherlock's chest. Sherlock caught him and then John was shaking, tears coming heavily enough to soak Sherlock's shirt almost immediately. John had cried in the past few months, of course he had, but not like this, never so harsh and raw. Sherlock had no idea what it meant; he assumed John must feeling some sort of relief, but his reaction was so violent it didn't seem to fit. He'd heard of happy tears but this wasn't at all what he imagined them to be. He wrapped both arms around John and didn't say anything while John bawled against him. Eventually the sobbing slowed, and Sherlock loosened his grip to rub John's back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture.

"Okay?"

John nodded, wiping at his face. "Yeah." He pushed himself up and took the tissues that Sherlock offered. He blew his nose and then eased himself off Sherlock a bit, so he was lying against his side instead of on top of him. "Sorry about the shirt." He flattened his hand over the wet spot, which actually made it more uncomfortable, cold and clammy against Sherlock's skin.

John bit at his lip and slid his hand lower down Sherlock's chest. "I should—do you want me to?" His fingers dipped just below the waistband of Sherlock's trousers.

"Not really," Sherlock said, and pulled John's hand away from his groin, lacing their fingers together. His libido had never matched John's, and the arousal he'd felt a few minutes ago had pretty much disappeared around the time John had started sobbing in his arms. Right now he mostly just felt conflicted. He had a lot to process and sort out in his head; anything related to sex always took up far too much space and time in his mind.

He closed his eyes and held John's hand, thoughts spinning, wishing maybe the wine had reacted just a bit more strongly with the remnants of last night's medication. No, he was definitely wide awake.

After a few long minutes John cleared his throat and said, "Well, I've sort of been avoiding it, but I'm supposed to go to . . . sex counselling, I guess it is?"

"And now you'll no longer avoid it?"

"Erm, you're supposed to come with me."

"Oh." Sherlock paused. "Okay. If you're comfortable with it."

"Of course I'm not comfortable with it. But I think we should."

"It's here, right? Not some outside therapist?"

"Yeah." John spread and then clenched his fingers in Sherlock's hand. "I'll make an appointment tomorrow."

"All right." For some reason the things that happened here in rehab seemed more insular. Safe. He brought John's hand up to his lips and told his mind to stop worrying about things that were good. His mind didn't listen.

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